Congress stinks worse than either Dems or Reps in Congress

Congress appears to be less than the sum of its parts. Current approval of the job Democrats are doing in Congress has a current trend estimate of 34.5%, while the estimated approval of Republicans in Congress is 28.8%. But overall approval of Congress has sunk to a miserable 22.6%, less than that of either party.
























Disapproval of Congressional Republicans remains a good deal higher than for Democrats due to a higher "don't know" rate in evaluating the Democrats. Disapproval of Republicans is at 64.8% while disapproval of Democrats is at 51.5%. Approval of both parties has been trending clearly down since January, while disapproval has trended up over the same time for both parties.

Amid the stories noting that approval of Congress is now below that of President Bush, it would be good to recognize that such simplistic comparisons are dangerous. Voters carry a generally negative view of the institution on Capitol Hill. Divided by parties, support is a bit higher.

Still, neither party can be comfortable with their current approval ratings. Republicans should note that they continue down despite enjoying a new Democratic majority to target for criticism. And Democrats should take little comfort in the small advantage they hold in approval. Democratic approval is trending down a bit faster than is Republican approval. Neither seems to have sold the public on their legislative agendas.

(Technical Note: The amount of polling on Congressional parties is more limited than one might wish. These trend estimates are based on all available polling, pooling the data to get better estimates than from any single poll. Individual polls, such as the new Harris Poll taken 7/6-9/07, produce somewhat different results, as seen by the spread of points around the lines in the figures. Harris, for example, found Democrats in Congress at 31% positive, 64% negative, while Republicans were at 21% positive and 76% negative. They found overall approval of Congress at 24% positive and 72% negative.)

Who lost the Iraq war funding/veto fight?

The debate over the Iraq War funding bill-- the original one with withdrawal dates-- and the presidential veto of the bill posed a key political question: who wins when Congress confronts President, and in this particular case did President Bush or the Congress win the battle for public opinion?

Democrats in Congress were particularly wary about the charge of "undermining the troops", a charge the White House used repeatedly and one to which past Congresses have fallen victim. But the White House had to defend continuing a policy that most of the public sees as a failure. The Democrats bet that full funding but with a deadline would deflect the charge of undermining troops while moving towards their supporters goal of ending the war. The president bet that a public unhappy with the war would nevertheless reject a "surrender date" and could be persuaded that the surge of troops and Gen. Petraeus' "new strategy" should be given time to work.

The key period was Friday, April 20 through Tuesday, May 1. On April 20, President Bush gave a full defense of his new policy in a speech at East Grand Rapids MI, outlining what was new, what the hopes were and where some success could be seen, while admitting a long road ahead including increased casualties. On Monday, April 23, the President met with General Petraeus, and the same day House and Senate negotiators approved a common bill. The next day, April 24, President Bush gave a final warning to Congress in a South Lawn appearance that again outlined the arguments against a deadline and promised a veto. The House passed the bill on April 25th and the Senate on April 25th. The following Tuesday, May 1, President Bush delivered his promised veto.

So what happened to public opinion? The period from December through mid-April showed surprising stability in approval of President Bush. Despite the change in control of Congress, the new "surge" initiative in Iraq and the subsequent debates about the war, approval of the President remained quite stable, with only momentary wiggles that quickly returned to a stable support of around 34%.

That changed on April 24th. The trend estimate of presidential approval marks a sudden and sharp change on that date. Approval on the 24th was a shade over 34%, as it had been since December. But after that, approval started to decline steadily to the current estimate of 31.9%. That 2.1 point decline may sound small, but it is a significant shift in the trend estimate. Individual polls vary widely around this trend, far more than 2 points, but the mean moves much less, and as the graph above makes clear, hardly moved at all in the December-March period. The sharpness of the change point, and the stability of the subsequent decline, argues that this was a "real" point of change and not just random noise. I'm using the conservative "old blue" estimator here, which is hard to fool about changes in trend. It has taken a while to make up its mind (and mine) that this is a real shift in support, but it and I are now convinced.

That the change occurs in the midst of the war deadline/veto debate could be accidental. But it certainly is a believable moment for opinions to shift. A fundamental problem of inference with change point estimates such as this is that anything that happened around April 24th could also possibly be the cause of this shift in approval. Attorney General Gonzalez testified the previous week, for example, and the President supported him during this week as well. And John McCain announced his presidential campaign. And other stuff happened. All can claim the same coincidental relationship with approval's sudden downward turn. But I'd argue that the debate over the war that week tapped into the most salient divide in American politics this spring and is the more plausible explanation.

And I KNOW someone will say it was gas prices. It wasn't. Gas prices started rising the week of January 22, from $2.107/gal and rose each week but one until May 21 when the price hit $3.211/gal. As of June 4 the price was $3.132. So if it was the price of gas, rather than a trivial little war or a boring Washington political fight that drives approval, the President should have started sinking rapidly around the end of January. Excuse the rant, but the "gas prices" matter more than the war or anything else argument is just wrong. At most gas prices enter into approval along with other economic performance variables, but they do not deserve the primacy some attribute to them.

And so the President pressed his case for continuing the new war strategy and retaining both full funding and an open ended commitment in Iraq. He ultimately won that legislative fight, at least until new funding is required in September. But his approval rating has again started to sink, sapping further his already seriously depleted stock of public support.

And so the story might end here. Bush cast his veto and prevailed on funding, but has lost the public battle, at least temporarily. But what about approval of Congress? Did their approval ratings change about this same time? If so, how?

Estimating approval change requires data. Since April 24, there have been 19 polls of presidential approval, providing my trend estimator with enough evidence to reach a reasonably strong conclusion. For Congressional approval, there have been only 10 polls since April 24, so any conclusion rests on half the evidence. Normally I say that the "old blue" estimator likes to have about 12 polls to detect a durable change of trend, rather than just a random bump. But 10 is "around 12" enough that I'll take the risk this time in order to compare Congressional approval. So there is no cheating, I mark the same change date in the Congressional chart, April 24th, so we can see if the shifts match.
























Congress experienced a downturn in approval at almost the same time as did Bush. The high point for Congress is actually April 15. Since then the Congressional approval rating has fallen from 34.5% to 33.0%.

So how do we read this result? Neither Congress nor President won new or increased support from the public following the April debate over the war. As a single actor, it is easier to understand the President's situation. But with Congress, interpretation is confounded. Did the deadline cause supporters of the war to turn more negative to Congress, while opponents of the war either didn't increase support or were unhappy with a measure they thought too weak? Or were Republican voters happy with Congressional Republican support of the President, while Democrats were happy with Democratic opposition while independents turned a bit down?

It is surely the case that whatever Congress does it is easy to find something not to like. Partisans can be upset with the behavior of the other party in Congress, or even with members from their own party who fail to satisfy them. And arguably Congress suffers from simple controversy which gives the impression of a chaotic institution. All this means that a direct interpretation of WHY congressional approval has slipped is much more ambiguous than it is for the President. But we can say that the net effect, however it was divided by partisanship or anything else, was a decline in approval of Congress, reversing a small upward slope prior to the period around April 24.

However, consider the counter-factual. If approval of Congress had risen following April 24th, we'd have pretty strong evidence that Congress had benefited from the war funding debate. That did not happen. So at the least we have evidence that Bush certainly suffered and that most likely so did Congress. Why Congress suffered, and among which groups of the population, we can't say.

It would be nice to see if the parties in Congress gained or suffered differently. Alas, there are only 2 polls on Democratic performance, and only one for Republicans. The data are below, but no conclusion is possible based on this thin gruel.






















So who lost the Iraq funding/veto fight? Both President and Congress. The President continues to support a war that a majority of the public is unhappy with, even if they are somewhat divided on the solution. The Democrats in Congress benefit from professed public support for reduced forces and a pullout deadline, but have failed to produce legislation that garners them increases in public support. And Republicans in Congress have started to talk about September as the turning point beyond which their support for an unpopular war must find a new direction that will not imperil their electoral chances in the 2008 congressional elections.

So far neither side has found a route to increased public support.

Congressional vs Presidential Approval

The Associated Press analysis of their new poll (taken 5/7-9/07) used the lede:

People think the Democratic-led Congress is doing just as dreary a job as President Bush, following four months of bitter political standoffs and little progress on Iraq and a host of domestic issues.

And a paragraph later:

The survey found only 35 percent approve of how Congress is handling its job, down 5 percentage points in a month. That gives lawmakers the same bleak approval rating as Bush, who has been mired at about that level since last fall, including his dip to a record low for the AP-Ipsos poll of 32 percent last January.

The comparison of the two series is interesting. As the top figures shows, approval of Congress has generally been rising since the Democrats took control in January. The red line is the more sensitive trend estimate. It turns slightly down at the end, while the standard trend estimate continues to rise. The slight difference is not enough to convince me that there is any downturn at this point, despite the 5 point change in the AP poll over a month. As the graphic makes clear, there is lots of noise from poll to poll and the trend estimate is much more reliable than a poll to poll comparison. By contrast, the Presidential trend in the second figure has been quite flat since January, as both blue and red lines agree.

The level of approval of Congress was very low in late 2006 and remains well short of its high points in early 1998 and following 9/11 in 2002. (See the entire Congressional approval series since 1990 here.) But Congress is rarely loved. In the 17 years since 1990, Congressional approval has risen above 50% only twice-- rising just above 50% in early 1998 before dropping sharply after the impeachment of President Clinton late in 1998, and for a few months following 9/11. For the vast majority of the time since 1990, approval of Congress has been below 45% and below 40% for much of the time.

In 1995, following the Republicans capture of control, approval stood at just over 30% and did not break 40% until mid-1997. By contrast, Presidents routinely enjoy approval over 50% and are seen as in some trouble politically when their approval falls below 50%. President Bush's lengthy record below 40% is unusually low and long in comparison to previous presidents (though a number dip briefly to the 30s.)

In this light, while approvals of 35% apiece may be numerically equal, the political implications in light of historical polling are not the same. The most obvious difference is that in 2007 Congressional approval has been rising while that of the President has been stagnant. Democrats in Congress are not enjoying very high levels of approval, but they are doing considerably better than Republican members. (See the graph below.) While Democrats lead Republicans by 8 points on approval, Republican disapproval is a whopping 21 points higher than disapproval of the Democrats.





























There is a famous question in political science: "why do voters hate Congress but love their Congressman?" The simple answer is that the institution is a convenient whipping boy for the President but also for its own members. Many members (who often enjoy personal approval levels well above 50%) run for reelection by running against Congress as an institution. The result is approval ratings of the Congress that are poor in comparison to those of the President or of its individual members. Thus it becomes a dangerous thing to make direct comparisons of Presidential and Congressional approval. The two are quite different in their norms and dynamics. It would be better to look at Congressional approval in light of its own history, and the Republican victory in the 1994 elections and in government after 1995 provides an excellent point of comparison.

Approval of Parties in Congress

Updated: 11/6/07

























Approval of Republicans and Democrats in Congress trend.
(Click image once or twice for full resolution)

This post is updated in place. Come to this page for the latest tracking of the approval of congressional parties series. The index in the right column provides a direct link from the thumbnail to this page.

Typical question wordings:

ABC/WP: "Do you approve or disapprove of the way the Democrats/Republicans in Congress are doing their job?"

Pew: "Do you approve or disapprove of the job the Democratic/Republican leaders in Congress are doing?"

Harris: "How would you rate the job Democrats/Republicans in Congress are doing: excellent, pretty good, only fair, or poor?"