Poll: 57% of Americans Would Vote to Replace Entire Congress

In a new Rasmussen poll now linked at Drudge, 57% of Americans polled would vote to replace every member of Congress currently serving. Independents, the critical swing vote upon which both parties depend for election victory, concur by a staggering 70%.

From Rasmussen via Drudge comes the stunning news that, were Congressional elections held today, 57% of all Americans would vote to oust from office each and every serving member of Congress. Just 25% would vote to keep the current Congressional legislative roster. 18% are unsure how they'd vote. Approval rating numbers for Congress have been in the tank since last October, when the financial meltdown began in earnest and the $700B bailout bill was introduced in Congress. At that time, 59% of Americans polled by Rasmussen wanted to vote them all out. Only 17% wanted to keep them. Here is the breakdown of that poll by the numbers, which indicate some partisan shifts: 43% of Democrats would vote to keep the entire Congress. That's an upward shift from only 25% last fall. 69% of Republicans believe their party is out of touch with the American people and would vote to oust all members of Congress. That number remains relatively unchanged. 70% of voters not affiliated with either party, the critical Independent swing vote, would also vote to oust all members of Congress if elections were held today, up from 62% last fall. Just 14% of Americans polled give Congress a good or excellent rating. 74% of Americans polled trust their own economic judgment more than Congress. 59% of Americans polled believe that when members of Congress meet with regulators and other government officials, they do so to help their friends and hurt their political opponents. Despite these horrifically bad reviews, more than 90% of incumbents in Congress routinely get re-elected every two years. Losses for incumbents are rare, and have been for many years now. Such losses often make headline news when they happen. One explanation frequently heard in Washington, D.C. is that “people hate Congress but love their own congressman.” Yet 50% of Americans polled also believe Congress has rigged re-election rules through border-contorting gerrymandering of Congressional districts and Congressional privileges such as franking, unavailable to contenders, to favor one party or the other. Rasmussen elaborates on this phenomenon in the poll:

When the Constitution was written, the nation’s founders expected that there would be a 50% turnover in the House of Representatives every election cycle. That was the experience they witnessed in state legislatures at the time (and most of the state legislatures offered just one-year terms).

For well over 100 years after the Constitution was adopted, the turnover averaged in the 50% range as expected. In the 20th century, turnover began to decline. As power and prestige flowed to Washington during the New Deal era, fewer and fewer members of Congress wanted to leave.

In 1968, congressional turnover fell to single digits for the first time ever, and it has remained very low ever since.

You can read a lot more background on this surprising poll at the Rasmussen link above.