GOP Voters Still More Critical of Their Congressmen Than Democrats Are

Republican voters are slightly less critical of the job their representatives in Congress are doing, but most still think the legislators are out of sync with the party base. Democratic voters, by contrast, are not as happy with the performance of their congressmen as they were a year ago. 

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that just 31% of Republican Likely Voters believe their members of Congress have done a good job representing GOP values over the past several years. But 61% believe they have lost touch with Republican voters throughout the nation. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Still, this is a slightly higher opinion of their congressional members than GOP voters have had in surveys back to November 2008 when 68% thought they were out of touch.  A year ago, several months before the Republican takeover of the House in the midterm elections, 72% felt that way.

Among Democratic Likely Voters, 50% say their legislators have done a good job representing Democratic Party values. Thirty-seven percent (37%), however, disagree and say they have lost touch with the party base throughout the nation. Thirteen percent (13%) are undecided.

This marks a loss of confidence from a year ago when most Democratic voters (61%) felt their representatives in Congress have done a good job of representing party values, and only 29% believed Democrats in Congress have lost touch with party voters throughout the nation.

Among all Likely U.S. Voters, 20% believe Republicans in Congress have done a good job representing the party’s values over the last several years, while 63% think they've lost touch with the party voter base. Thirty-five percent (35%) of voters nationwide say congressional Democrats are doing a good job presenting their party’s values, while 50% believe they have lost touch with its voters.

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The national survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 21-22, 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.