Sure, 74 percent of the population thinks Congress generally is pretty much a
waste of time, but people have always complained about Congress, right? And while they bitch about it, they keep on re-electing their own representative. "Throw those bums out, but my guy is okay," has been the way it's worked forever.
Well, maybe not anymore. This Congress has become so profoundly dysfunctional—and the results of that dysfunction so visible—that the new mood of the electorate seems to be "throw all the bums out." That's at least what a new Washington Post/ABC News poll suggests. For the first time ever, a majority of people don't like their own representative.
Just over half the public, 51 percent, say they disapprove of the job that their own member of Congress is doing in the new poll, rising above the 50 percent threshold for the first time in the quarter-century of Post-ABC polling on this question. Just 41 percent approve. That's a new low, though it's not significantly different from ratings last October (43 percent), immediately after the end of a 16-day partial government shutdown that sent Republican approval ratings through the floor. […]
The poll also finds, as usual, the Democrats' brand fares better than the Republicans' brand three months before the midterms, with 49 percent holding favorable views of the Democratic Party and 35 percent having a favorable view of the GOP. But Democrats' reputation edge is not expected to translate to big gains at the ballot box in November, with other polls showing 1) a much tighter race in whether voters plan to cast ballots for Democrats or Republicans, and 2) lower enthusiasm for voting among important Democratic-leaning groups. Election forecasters expect Republicans will maintain their majority in the House and say they also have a better than even chance of winning the six seats needed to take the Senate.
It's Markos's mantra at work: If we get our people out to vote, we win. And getting our people out to vote has always been a problem in midterms. But there's rarely been as much for Democrats to work with as Republicans have gifted us in the past two years—Hobby Lobby and immigration and Medicaid expansion, just to name a few issues.