PRINCETON, NJ -- Congressional job approval remains at 13% in November, identical to October and tying the all-time Gallup low on this measure. The 2011 average is on track to be the lowest annual rating of Congress in Gallup's history.





The trend on this measure has been at or near record lows for the last four months, with ratings of 13% in August, 15% in September, and 13% in each of the last two months.

At this point, approval of the way Congress is handling its job remains low among all Americans, regardless of their political party identification: Republicans, independents, and Democrats are all in a range of 11% to 15% approval.





The current rough parity in approval across party groups reflects both the divided nature of government and the broad levels of dissatisfaction with Congress that are affecting all political and ideological groups. Democrats became significantly more positive than Republicans about Congress in early 2009, as Democrat Barack Obama entered the White House and with both houses of Congress controlled by Democrats. Democrats' relatively high approval of Congress shifted downward near the end of 2010, when Republicans took control of the House with a gain of more than 60 seats in the November midterm elections. Democrats' and Republicans' approval of Congress has fluctuated since then, but with much smaller differences between those identifying with the two major parties.

Congressional approval has averaged 17% so far this year. If that holds, it will be the lowest annual congressional job approval rating in Gallup records dating to 1974 -- slightly below the recent annual lows of 19% recorded in 2010 and 2008, and below two years in which Gallup recorded only one measure of congressional approval: 19% in 1979, and 18% in 1992.

Bottom Line

The current low congressional job approval rating is one of a number of measures that attest to the low esteem in which Americans hold their federal government. These include low confidence ratings in the institution of Congress, low honesty and ethics ratings for members of Congress, low trust and confidence in the legislative branch of government, low satisfaction with the way the nation is being governed, and a very low image rating of the federal government in general.

If the congressional supercommittee charged with cutting more than a trillion dollars in spending from the federal budget is unable to do so by the end of this month, these measures of the public's faith in Congress are likely to drop even lower.

The implications of these attitudes for next year's House and Senate elections are still not totally clear. It is possible that voters will turn their disdain for Congress onto the Republicans, the party that controls the House, and flip control of the lower body back to the Democrats, or more generally reward challengers and oust incumbents. With only a third of the Senate up for election -- and two-thirds of those seats Democratic -- it is less clear what impact the public's negative mood will have on the Democrats' current control of that body.