Gallup: More People Approve of Congressional Republicans Than Democrats

Gallup: More People Approve of Congressional Republicans Than Democrats

The latest Gallup poll shows that more Americans approve of Congressional Republicans over the Democrats.

The Republicans gained six points since October.

Is this more proof that the impeachment circus blew up in the Democrats’ face? I wouldn’t fault you if you said yes.

Congress

After all, the impeachment stuff began in October and ended in January. President Donald Trump’s job approval rating went up during that time, too.

During that time, the Democrats’ approval rating went “down three points and disapproval has climbed five points, from 57% to 62%.”

Overall, the Republicans beat the Democrats 40% to 35%.

Republicans also won in the job approval rating from Republicans and Republican-leaning independents:

Although majorities of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents, as well as Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, approve of the job their own party’s members of Congress are doing, there is a significant difference between the two groups. Republicans’ approval of congressional Republicans has jumped 13 points to 76% since October, but Democrats’ 65% approval of congressional Democrats is virtually unchanged from October.

Republicans’ and Republican leaners’ more positive evaluations of their own party’s congressional caucus are the major reason Republicans in Congress receive higher ratings than Democrats in Congress overall.

Romney and Democrats

Gallup last took a favorability poll of Romney in February 2019. In that poll, 45% of Republicans favored Romney compared to 37% of Democrats. About 37% of adults, in general, favored him in that poll.

But a year later more Democrats favor Romney than Republicans.

Is anyone shocked by this news? Yeah, I’m not either. Romney was the only Republican who voted to convict President Donald Trump on one of the two articles of impeachment:

Although Romney’s 39% favorability among U.S. adults is unchanged from a year ago, he is currently viewed more favorably among Democrats than he is among Republicans, a reversal of previous readings. A 56% majority of Democrats but just 23% of Republicans now hold favorable views of Romney. Compared with Gallup’s prior reading of Romney in February 2019, his favorable rating is up 19 points among Democrats and down 22 points among Republicans. Romney’s decision last week to back the Republicans’ investigation of Hunter Biden’s actions in Ukraine could quickly temper Democrats’ opinion of him.

McConnell Goes Up, Pelosi Goes Down

McConnell also enjoyed a boost in his approval rating after impeachment while Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s unfavorable rating went up:

McConnell’s favorability rating has increased by six points since October to 33% now, because of a 15-point jump to 62% among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents. There has been no meaningful change in McConnell’s unfavorable rating (48%) since October.

Although, on a relative basis, McConnell’s favorability is not particularly high, it is his highest rating since Gallup’s first reading in 2010, and it is well above his personal low of 18% in 2015, the year he became the majority leader.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 39% favorability is roughly the same as it was in October, but her unfavorable rating has climbed — from 50% in October to 55% now — and nearly matches her highest unfavorable of 56% that came just before the 2010 midterm elections in which Republicans regained control of the House. She receives a 71% favorable rating from her party’s base.

Gallup did not include Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer in its October 2019 poll. This latest poll found that his 31% favorable rating “is in line with all of Gallup’s readings for him since 2017.”

However, Schumer’s “46% unfavorable rating is his highest of five measurements (though similar to the 44% from June 2018).”

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