Voters Not Cutting New Congress Any Slack

There's a new Congress in town, but it still has a way to go to convince voters it's not more of the same.

The first Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey conducted since the new Congress went into session early this month finds that 10% of Likely U.S. Voters rate its performance as good or excellent. Forty-eight percent (48%) say the legislators are doing a poor job. (To see survey question wording, click here.) 

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% and poor marks running from 43% to 71%.  Democrats remain in charge of the Senate, but Republicans are now the majority party in the House.

Despite the change in the House, GOP voters remain more critical of Congress than members of President Obama's party. Fifty-five percent (55%) of Republicans and 60% of voters not affiliated with either of the major parties say the current Congress is doing a poor job, a view shared by just 32% of Democrats.

Fifty-nine percent (59%) of Mainstream voters think Congress is doing a poor job, but just 24% of the Political Class agrees. 

Still, favorable ratings for John Boehner, the new Republican House speaker, among all voters have risen to their highest levels to date.  Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, now House minority leader, remains the most unpopular congressional leader as she has been for the past two years.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on January 23-24, 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.