Voters Say It’s Important Who’s In Congress, Who Runs Congress

Voters are overwhelmingly clear: they want to believe that elections make a difference. But they remain deeply skeptical about the new Congress.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 81% of Likely U.S. Voters think it matters who represents them in Congress. Just nine percent (9%) say that it’s not important who their congressional representative is. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Seventy-three percent (73%) of voters also believe it matters which political party controls Congress. Nineteen percent (19%) disagree and say it doesn’t matter which party is in power.

But voters are more narrowly divided when asked about the quality of the representation they have in Congress. Forty percent (40%) say their current representative is the best person for the job, but 38% disagree. Twenty-two percent (22%) aren’t sure.

And, despite the belief that it matters who wins on Election Day, voters have little confidence in what their elected politicians will do. Only about one-in-five voters are optimistic about what Congress will accomplish when it comes to taxes, government spending, cleaning up corruption, and immigration.

Fifty-nine percent (59%), in fact, think it is at least somewhat likely most voters will be disappointed with Republicans in Congress before the next national elections in 2012, with 38% who say it is Very Likely. 

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on November 21-22, 2010 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.