Pelosi’s Approval Rating Takes Major Hit

By: David A. Patten
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s popularity has fallen to a new low for the year, with 60 percent of likely voters now viewing her unfavorably according to a Rasmussen Reports poll released Friday.
Even worse news for the California Democrat: A whopping 42 percent characterize her job performance as “very unfavorable.”
The trend looks bad for Pelosi as well. Just two weeks ago, 53 percent of those surveyed viewed Pelosi somewhat or very unfavorably, and her “very unfavorable” rating was 36 percent. A 7 point favorability decline in two weeks suggests Pelosi’s popularity is in a serious tailspin.
Despite this week’s rally on Wall Street, pundits say Democrats are taking it on the chin over the bad economy and the fallout over AIG bonuses.
“Congress is feeling voter anger over executive bonuses paid by AIG after it received a massive taxpayer bailout,” the Rasmussen organization reports in its analysis of the results.
Several other findings suggest voters’ patience with Democrats’ handling of the economy could be wearing thin:
# Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid is also suffering from weak poll numbers. Of the 1,000 likely voters Rasmussen polled March 24 and 25, some 45 percent rated Reid unfavorably, compared to 23 percent who gave him a favorable assessment.
# Even among Democrats, the popularity of both Reid and Pelosi is sinking. A growing number of Democrats are now critical of their performance.
# In the past two weeks, Pelosi’s favorability among Democrats has dropped from 65 percent to 57 percent.
# Reid’s favorable rating among Democrats has also taken a serious dip, from 51 percent two weeks ago to 43 percent in the survey released Friday.
# One issue plaguing Democrats, Rasmussen says, is that two-thirds of Americans now believe Obama is likely to raise taxes on those earning less than $250,000 a year.
# Democrats have shown recent weakness relative to Republicans in generic-ballot surveys of voters’ partisan leanings.
Other Rasmussen survey results suggest Republicans should temper any temptation to wallow in schadenfreude over Democrats’ recent miscues, however.
Although the popularity of Democratic leaders has been falling sharply, the favorability ratings of GOP leaders has remained flat.
Approval numbers for Sen. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John Boehner have remained basically unchanged – perhaps indicating voters remain unconvinced that Republicans’ proposals on how to fix the economy are any better.