The FINANCIAL — Over the past few months the air in Washington, D.C. has continued to grow heavy and oppressive, and this has had nothing to do with the weather. The partisan fighting is contentious and the intra-party fighting is not far behind in intensity. Americans are definitely taking notice of this, and the force of their displeasure is evident in how they feel about Congress, the political parties there, and some of the Congressional leaders, according to Harris Interactive Inc.
When it comes to the overall job they are doing, just under one in ten Americans (9%) give Congress positive ratings while over nine in ten (91%) give them negative ratings. This is similar to last month, when nine in ten (90%) gave them negative ratings while one in ten (10%) gave them negative marks. These negative ratings are across the board. Almost three in five U.S. adults (58%) give Congress a rating of poor, the lowest in The Harris Poll’s scale. Over half of both Republicans (54%) and Democrats (53%) give them a rating of poor, while two-thirds of Independents (66%) give Congress a poor rating.
The parties don’t fare much better. Just over one in ten Americans (14%) give Republicans in Congress a positive rating, while over half (54%) give them a negative rating. For Democrats in Congress, less than one in five (17%) give them a positive rating while over half (53%) give them a negative rating. For Democrats this is very similar to their ratings in January (16% positive/54% negative), while Republicans are actually up from where they were in January (9% positive/59% negative), according to Harris Interactive Inc.
Looking at the two partisan leaders in the House of Representatives, more than half of Americans give both Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner (55%) and Democrat Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (52%) negative ratings for the jobs they are doing. Less than one in five give Minority Leader Pelosi (15%) positive ratings while just over one in ten (13%) give Speaker Boehner positive ratings. Three in ten Americans (30%) are not familiar enough with Leader Pelosi to have an opinion and almost one-third (32%) say the same about Speaker Boehner. Again, these are almost unchanged from January, when Speaker Boehner had positive ratings of 12% and negative ratings of 56%, and Leader Pelosi had positive marks of 17% and negative ratings of 55%.
Moving to the other chamber of Congress, the news isn’t much better for Senate leaders. Maybe one positive is that more than two in five Americans are not familiar enough to have an opinion of either Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (41%) or Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (50%). But two in five (40%) give Senator McConnell negative ratings while 45% give negative marks to the job Senator Reid is doing. Just one in ten Americans (10%) give Senator McConnell positive ratings and slightly more (14%) give Senator Reid positive ratings, according to Harris Interactive Inc.
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