WASHINGTON — Americans switched control of the House of Representatives to Republicans this year, but a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds they remain as unhappy as they have ever been with Capitol Hill.
By more than 2-1, voters say most members of Congress don't deserve re-election, matching a historic low from last spring. Twenty-eight percent say most members should get another term in office; 63% say most should be replaced.
Last year, dismay with Congress fueled the conservative Tea Party movement and cost Democrats their hold on the House. The levels of discontent are higher than they were just before elections in 1994, 2006 and 2010, years when control changed hands.
The failure of the GOP majority to turn around attitudes isn't a surprise, says John Pitney of Claremont McKenna College in California.
"The economy is still in tough shape, and if people read stories in the paper about Congress, words like 'deadlock' and 'deficit' come up," the congressional scholar says. "That's not a recipe for a happy electorate."
That unhappiness typically is taken out on the party in power. Among incumbents, 52 Democrats and two Republicans lost their House seats in November's elections.
"Republicans are going to have to defend some seats because they picked up a lot of seats, so they should look at this with a bit of trepidation," says Bertram Johnson, a political scientist at Middlebury College in Vermont, "although it's too far before the election yet to panic."
The poll, taken Thursday to Sunday, has a margin of error of +/-4 percentage points.
Republican voters are more dissatisfied than Democrats: 36% of Democrats say most members of Congress deserve re-election, compared with 26% of Republicans. Independents — by 3-1 or 69%-23% — say most members of Congress shouldn't have another term.
Michael Steel, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, notes that Democrats continue to control the Senate and White House. "We control only one-half of one-third of the federal government," he says.
Those surveyed take a more positive view of their own representative. By 57%-34%, they say he or she deserves another term. That outlook is a bit brighter than it was just before Election Day last year, when 51% said their representative deserved re-election.
That's only limited comfort for incumbents.
"Voter dissatisfaction tends to accompany changeover in Congress," Pitney says. "You add that with redistricting and the new constituencies that many members will be facing, and I wish I had the concession for anti-anxiety medication on Capitol Hill."
