Favorability Ratings Up for Boehner, Down for Pelosi, Reid, McConnell

Now that the new Congress is fully settled in, favorability ratings have dropped for all of the top leaders except Speaker of the House John Boehner.

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters have at least a somewhat favorable opinion of Boehner, including 16% with a Very Favorable opinion. Thirty-four percent (34%) hold an unfavorable view, with 14% who view him Very Unfavorably. These findings are virtually unchanged from a month ago. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Prior to being elected speaker of the house, more than one-third of voters did not know enough about Boehner to have an opinion of him. Now, just 19% are not sure about the new Republican speaker, down from 21% last month and the mid- to high 30s as recently as August.

Boehner received a spike in favorable ratings to 41% in November as media coverage of him increased following the GOP takeover of the House in the midterm elections. Prior to that survey, Boehner's favorables had stayed in a range of 21% to 32% since Barack Obama took office in January 2009. 

Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, now House minority leader, remains the least popular congressional leader, as she has for some time. Just 28% now have a favorable view of the Democratic leader, down seven points from last month. The new finding includes 12% with a Very Favorable view. Sixty-four percent (64%) view Pelosi unfavorably, with 48% who regard her Very Unfavorably.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters nationwide was conducted on February 20-21, 2011 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.