Rasmussen Poll: 59 Percent Say Congress Is Doing a Poor Job

Most voters say Congress is doing a poor job, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey, and the disapproval is across all political and demographic groups.

A majority of likely voters (59%) say Congress is doing a "poor" job, up from 52% in January, while only 15% of likely U.S. voters rate Congress' performance as good or excellent, down from 20% in January.

About half of voters say their own representative is not the best person for the job. Only 30% say their representative in Congress is the best possible person for the job.

The poll comes at a time when Congress is very evenly divided, with Republicans holding a one-vote slim majority in the House and Democrats having a one-seat majority in the Senate.

Independent voters in the Rasmussen poll have more negative views of Congress than either Democrats or Republicans. While 38% of Democrats and 31% of Republicans say their representative in Congress is the best possible person for the job, only 21% of unaffiliated voters say that.

Nearly two-thirds of unaffiliated voters rate Congress as doing a poor job, as do 58% of Republicans, and 55% of Democrats.

Older voters in the Rasmussen survey have a much more negative view of Congress. Only 4% of voters 65 and older say Congress is doing a good or excellent job, compared with 12% of voters 40-64 and 29% of voters under 40.

Sixty-four percent of whites, 38% of black voters, and 57% of other minorities give Congress a poor rating.

Both men and women give Congress poor ratings, with only 18% of men and 12% of women voters rating the job performance of Congress as good or excellent.

In terms of income, 35% of voters in the highest bracket — earning more than $200,000 a year — rate the job performance of Congress as good or excellent, but just 13% of those with annual incomes between $30,000 and $50,000 agree.

President Joe Biden's strongest supporters are most satisfied with their own congressional representatives. Among voters who strongly approve of Biden's job performance as president, 50% say that, regardless of how Congress is doing overall, their local representative in Congress deserves to be reelected. By contrast, among those who disapprove of Biden's performance, just 27% think their own representative deserves reelection.

NPR suggests factors like gerrymandering, political polarization, the influence of special interests, as well as money in politics cause voters to disapprove of Congress.

People have also seen constant fighting over the election of the House speaker, and the deadlock over important funding bills for the border, Israel, and Ukraine.

The survey of 1,100 U.S. likely voters was conducted March 26-28 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research.