Poll: Just 12% happy with Congress
CBS News/NYT Poll
In the midst of a bleak economic landscape and after a bruising battle over the federal budget deficit, approval of Congress now matches its all-time low, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll.
Just 12 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing - the same as the lowest percentage recorded in this poll, reached in October 2008, right before the November elections.
Dissatisfaction with Congress cuts across party lines. Republicans, Democrats, and independents all overwhelmingly disapprove of the job Congress is doing.
Though most Americans disapprove of both parties in Congress, they disapprove of Republicans more. Seventy-two percent of Americans disapprove of the job Republicans in Congress are doing, compared to 63 percent who disapprove of the Democrats in Congress.
Among Democrats, more approve than disapprove of the job Democrats in Congress are doing. That is reversed for Republicans - more of them disapprove than approve of the job members of their own party are doing in Congress. Independents disapprove of both parties in Congress.
In keeping with Congress' dismal review, just 6 percent of registered voters think most members deserve re-election - the lowest percentage ever in CBS News Polls during the past 20 years, and a lower percentage than the 9 percent who thought so right before the 2010 midterms.
CBS News/NYT Poll
That's true now, too - 33 percent say their representative deserves re election - but nearly six in 10 registered voters don't think their own representative deserves re-election. That percentage is close to the highest found in CBS News Polls.
More from the CBS News/NYT poll:
Most think U.S. on wrong track as fears about economy grow
Obama's approval rating drops to all-time low
Perry leads pack in Republican presidential race
Read the complete poll (PDF)
The CBS News poll database
Chief Washington correspondent Bob Schieffer discusses the poll on "The Early Show" below:
John Dickerson's reporters roundtable discusses the implications of the poll and the current state of the GOP presidential race below:
This poll was conducted among a random sample of 1,452 adults nationwide, interviewed by telephone September 10-15, 2011. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups is higher. An oversample of Republicans was also conducted for this poll, for a total of 781 interviews among this group. The results were then weighted in proportion to the average party distributions in previous 2011 CBS News and CBS News/New York Times Polls and in the random sample in this poll. The margin of error for Republicans is plus or minus four percentage points.
