13% Give Congress Positive Grades

Ratings for the current Congress remain mostly negative among voters, and fewer voters share the belief that the legislature has passed anything to improve life in America.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely Voters shows just 13% say Congress is doing a good or excellent job. Nearly half of voters nationwide (49%) say Congress is doing a poor job. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Voters showed slightly less negativity towards the legislators last month than they had in several years.
 

In surveys from January 2009 through December 2010, the previous Congress, with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate, earned good or excellent marks ranging from 10% to 23%.  Poor marks ranged from a low of 43% to a high of 71%, reached a month before the health care bill became law. Democrats remain in charge of the Senate.

In the three months since Republicans took control of the House, positive ratings for Congress have ranged from 10% to 15%, while poor marks have run from 42% to 49%.

But just 21% of Republican voters say Congress is doing a good or excellent job, along with 10% of Democrats and seven percent (7%) of voters not affiliated with either major political party.

(Want a free daily e-mail update? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook.

The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on March 22-23, 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.