Just 8% Approve of Job Congress Is Doing

Voter approval of Congress' job performance has now fallen to a near five-year low.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that only eight percent (8%) of Likely U.S. Voters think Congress is doing a good or excellent job.  Fifty-two percent (52%) rate Congress' performance as poor.  (To see survey question wording, click here.)

From January 2007 through December 2010, with Democrats in control of both the House and Senate, the legislature earned good or excellent marks ranging from nine percent (9%) to 26%, although generally their rankings were in the low teens for most of this period. This trend continued through the early months of this year after Republicans regained control of the House, but Congress' positive ratings fell to nine percent (9%) in April and May.

Since January 2007, poor marks for Congress have ranged from a low of 35% in early February 2007 to a high of 71% in February of last year. Since then, until the GOP takeover of the House, those giving Congress poor grades have generally fallen in the high 50s and low 60s. This past February, however, just 42% felt that way, but Congress' negatives have risen since then.

Voters are evenly divided this month when asked if most members of Congress are corrupt:  39% say yes; 39% say no, while 23% are undecided. The view that most congressmen are corrupt has ranged from 36% to 45% since January of last year.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on June 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.