(This caricature of Republican and Democratic Party symbols is by DonkeyHotey.)Republicans love to talk about President Obama's job approval numbers (even though those numbers are close to 50/50). What you won't hear them talk about are the job approval numbers for the Republican-controlled Congress. The job approval numbers for Congress are so low they makes the president's numbers look astronomical.
Only about 12% of the general public approves of the job that Congress is doing -- and that disapproval includes people from all political beliefs (Republicans 11%, Independents 7%, and Democrats 19%). It seems strange that Democrats have the highest opinion of the job Congress is doing (8 points higher than the opinion of Republicans. I guess it is because congressional Democrats have been able to block most of the worst things congressional Republicans have tried to do.
Now you might think the public is disgusted with both parties in Congress -- and you would be right. But as the bottom chart shows, they are less approving of the congressional Republicans than the congressional Democrats. Only one group (those 65 & over) approve more of congressional Republicans. White are split between the two parties. All other groups have a lower opinion of congressional Republicans than Democrats.
The charts below were made from a recent YouGov Poll -- done between July 31st and August 4th of a random national sample of 1,000 adults, and has a margin of error of about 4 points.
