Gallup Poll Results of
Congressional Job Approval by
American voters,
9-12 October 2006.
If I was a republican, I'd be upset with the party leadership because they are clearly not listening to the average American voter. Instead of circling the wagons, key republicans should be asking difficult questions of their colleagues -- questions that are necessary to begin purging the party of those individuals whose blind ambition and personal corruption are trashing all republicans.
As the midterm elections approach, members of Congress understandably can be nervous about being able to keep their jobs. A new Gallup Poll finds only 23% of Americans saying they approve of the way Congress is handling its job. Additionally, just 30% say they are satisfied with the way things are going in the country at the present time. Both measures are low from a historical perspective, creating an environment that may benefit the Democrats in November. In general, the incumbent party typically loses seats when voters are dissatisfied with the way the government is performing, making Republicans vulnerable this year.
Even a 23% approval rate seems high, don't you think?
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It's not really very clear what the graphs mean. Do congressional Republicans have a 42% approval rating, while Democrats have only 12%. Or are these the approval rating Republican and Democrat voters have of congress in general? I suspect it's the latter, but if so there's a potential ecological inference fallacy involved with assuming this has terrible implications for Republicans. Wouldn't it be more revealing to look at the approval of congressional Republicans vs congressional Democrats?
the way i read that graph is that respondees' approval of congress as a whole were divided up by their party affiliation. so, for example, republican voters' approval of congress was more evenly divided than was that of either independents or democrats.
does this make sense?
It just so happens that 42% of Americans also believe in demonic possession. When this is considered, it should come as no surprise to hear that 42% of Republicans still support Bush and Congress.
I think the answer lies within this excellent series on the Authoritarian Mindset. Some people will continue to follow out of principle, long after it's prudent.
I wonder if politics isn't like religion or team sports. People have subroutines and wiring that makes them coalesce into groups, and they'll be damned before they'll abandon their team, regardless of what it does.
As a scientist, you may have encountered ideas forwarded by people you generally agreed with politically that were just batshit crazy. But when the pesky scientific tendency to criticize stupidity came out, everyone looked at you like you just took a dump on the carpet. Like pointing out flaws is disloyal, or at least mean, and your job is to cheer for your side. Like telling your anti GM food friend that all carrots have DNA in them.
I bet a very small subset of us actually think about what policymakers or politicians are actually saying.
I think the link Chris left is excellent, too. I just don't want to underestimate intellectual sloth and inertia. And the limbic system.
I don't think you can read anything about the substance of policy from the figures that you couldn't get from a cup of tea. Yes, this is probably an indication of congressional approval by party... especially since there's only one independent in Congress so the middle graph wouldn't make much sense. But approval/disapproval doesn't necessarily mean what the Ds say it means. For instance one of the assumptions is that the disapproval is probably coming from people who'd are at least potential D voters. But Bush and Congress might well be disapproved of from the right rather than the left. (This is almost certainly the case.) That only works to the advantage of the Ds if those folks are so disgruntled that they don't vote at all, but the Rs have a much more efficient get-out-the-vote system than do the Ds. And disapproval of congress doesn't necessarily translate to disapproval of one's own congressman. The tendancy is to see one's own rep as the exception.
BTW, another interesting crosstabulation might be with trust/approval of mainstream media. That would reveal alot. My guess is that media isn't held in very high esteem, but I'd like to know how they compare to congress.