The Daily Background

From Rasmussen, a well-respected Republican pollster often suspected of slightly over-polling conservatives:

As Election Day dawned, just 15% of Americans rated the performance of the GOP Congress as good or excellent. For the GOP faithful, it probably seemed as if it couldn’t get any worse. But, now, as the Republican Congress is fading into history, their ratings have sunk a bit lower–just 13% now say they’re doing a good or an excellent job.

Wow. That’s just ridiculous. When have you ever heard of Congress having a 13% approval rating? That’s just absurd. 13% is the President’s approval rating backwards, according to some recent polls. Could they possibly be doing a worse job? In wave years like this, parties often experience ‘winner’s bumps’ after elections- that is to say, they become more popular after they actually win (maybe it’s more accurate to say that the losers popularity goes down rather than the winner’s popularity goes up so much).

I think we’re definitely seeing that effect going on here, as Democrats are more popular than they were on election day. Rasmussen continues, with a note about future expectations and cynicism:

Looking ahead, 46% believe it is at least somewhat likely that Congress will seriously address the important issues facing our nation in the coming year. That’s up slightly from 43% last month. Still, 49% say such attention to the public business is not very or not at all likely.

Eh, give it time. Democrats haven’t even gotten into the majority yet. Also note that self-identified Democrats make up about 33% of the population… that extra 13% who think that Dems are going to take up serious issues are independents.

Filed under: oh six midterm Elections, Z-TDB Blog