As the famous Gallup Poll & others have documented, Congress is only about one level more popular than ISIS, the Taliban, or Al Qaeda, and yet their reelection rate is almost 100%—Observe:
“Our ruling
The meme said that Congress has 11 percent approval ratings, yet 96.4 percent of incumbent lawmakers were re-elected.
We found small differences in the actual percentages -- Congress had roughly a 14 percent approval rate, and the incumbent re-election rate may be as low as 95 percent -- but the point of the meme is solid. Voters hold Congress in low regard, yet they re-elect almost everyone. So we rate the claim True.”
Source: “Congress has 11% approval ratings but 96% incumbent reelection rate, meme says,” By Louis Jacobson on Tuesday, November 11th, 2014 at 4:56 p.m., PolitiFact: http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2014/nov/11/facebook-posts/congress-has-11-approval-ratings-96-incumbent-re-e/
“Although Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of the job Congress in general is doing, voters re-elect most members of Congress in every election.”
Source: “Americans Down on Congress, OK With Own Representative,” by Elizabeth Mendes, May 9, 2013, GALLUP: http://www.gallup.com/poll/162362/americans-down-congress-own-representative.aspx
“Back in 1994,… [Speaker of the House, Newt] Gingrich knew that people tended to vote for their own congressman, regardless of party affiliation or national issues.”
Source: “Time to throw out the Republican Congress,” ANOTHER VIEW, October 28, 2006|By Donald P. Russo, Special to The Morning Call: http://articles.mcall.com/2006-10-28/opinion/3703268_1_white-house-mid-term-house-speaker-dennis-hastert
“Only one in ten Americans thinks Congress is doing a good job.
With numbers like these... it's hard to imagine how any of our lawmakers will get re-elected in November. But sadly many of them will.
According to a new Gallup poll, Congress gets a 10% approval rating, which ties its all-time low for the past 4 decades.
83% disapprove of Congress.
What's more, Congress' approval rating is down among all political groups... at 9% for Democrats, 11% for independents and 10% for Republicans.
While experts say it's hard to pinpoint exactly why Americans are so negative about Congress, the answer is probably "everything."...Why do we keep doing this to ourselves? The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome.”
Source: “Why won't Americans vote Congress out of office?,” August 15th, 2012, 01:04 PM ET, By Jack Cafferty, CNN: http://caffertyfile.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/15/why-wont-americans-vote-congress-out-of-office/
“The enduring unpopularity of Congress appears to have seeped into the nation's 435 congressional districts, as a record-low percentage of registered voters, 46%, now say the U.S. representative in their own congressional district deserves re-election. Equally historic, the share of voters saying most members of Congress deserve re-election has fallen to 17%, a new nadir...The legendary Speaker of the House Tip O'Neill famously coined the phrase "all politics is local,"...But now that adage rings less true as voters see their own U.S. representative in the same way that they see most other members of Congress -- as not deserving re-election...Partisans on both sides of the aisle are displeased with Congress. But with so few voters saying they are willing to re-elect their own representative, it suggests that many officeholders will be vulnerable, if not in the general election, then perhaps in the host of competitive primaries soon to take place.”
Source: “Record Low Say Own Representative Deserves Re-Election,” by Andrew Dugan and Brad Hoffman, January 24, 2014, GALLUP: http://www.gallup.com/poll/167024/record-low-say-own-representative-deserves-election.aspx
News items compiled via 'Fair Use' by Gordon Wayne Watts (www.GordonWatts.com / www.GordonWayneWatts.com), LAKELAND, Florida, USA (between Tampa & Orlando) –websites were visited today, Monday, 04 April 2016.