Allahpundit
HotAir.com
8/9/2011
Note well: It’s a poll of adults, not a poll of voters, so it’s no predictor of how next year’s vote will shake out. But I want you to see it anyway because it corroborates other recent polls showing a historic collapse of Congress’s standing among the public. Never in modern times, through the financial crisis, the Iraq war, or Clinton’s scandals and impeachment, have American adults been quite this disgusted with their reps. It’s come to this:
Only 41 percent of people questioned say the lawmaker in their district in the U.S. House of Representatives deserves to be re-elected – the first time ever in CNN polling that that figure has dropped below 50 percent. Forty-nine percent say their representative doesn’t deserve to be re-elected in 2012. And with ten percent unsure, it’s the first time that a majority has indicated that they would boot their representative out of office if they had the chance today.
“That 41 percent, in the polling world, is an amazing figure. Throughout the past two decades, in good times and bad, Americans have always liked their own member of Congress despite abysmal ratings for Congress in general,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Now anti-incumbent sentiment is so strong that most Americans are no longer willing to give their own representative the benefit of the doubt. If that holds up, it could be an early warning of an electorate that is angrier than any time in living memory.”
As for all members of Congress, the poll indicates only a quarter of the public says most members of Congress deserve to be re-elected.
Among registered voters, the split is slightly better but still underwater at 45/48…
The article continues at HotAir.com
