Congress received its second all-time low within two weeks from the American public. Most of the country points the shutdown blame at the GOP as the party continues to receive unsatisfactory ratings.
Furloughed AmeriCorps employee Jeffrey Wismer sits alone on the Washington Mall on Oct. 8, 2013 as he calls on Congress to end the government shutdown. (Photo by Jason Reed/Reuters)
Americans’ approval of Congress, most notably the GOP, hit a second all-time low within two weeks as the government closure continues.
Just 5% said they support the decisions being made by government leaders, while a whopping 83% disapprove, according to the Associated Press-GfK poll released Wednesday.
A mere 10% of the public reportedly approved of Congress hours before the shutdown began last week. The rate was the smallest percent in history that favored Congress, as of Oct. 1.
Sixty-two percent of the public believes Republicans are “almost all/a lot” to blame for the current government shutdown. President Obama and Democrats both received 49% of the criticism, followed by House Speaker John Boehner with 48%, the Tea Party with 43%, and Sen. Harry Reid with 39%.
Republicans again earned a 17%-approval rating from Americans, the same number from the Quinnipiac University poll conducted last week. Seventy percent of the public disapproves of the party now, down from 74%.
And just 23% of the country favors Democrats, a decline since the party’s rating stood at 32% last Tuesday. Sixty-two percent disapprove.
Americans even favored such usual unappealing topics—witches, zombies, jury duty, hipsters, Wall Street, the DMC, and the IRS—over Congress, according to a survey released Tuesday by the left-leaning Public Policy Polling. The government body tied with cockroaches and toenail fungus, but beat the controversial pop-icon Miley Cyrus.
Related: Congress less popular than dog poop, more so than Miley Cyrus, twerking
The president on Tuesday suggested a short-term truce, asking Republicans to vote to reopen the government and raise the debt ceiling as long-term negotiations continue. But Boehner affirmed that won’t happen.
In turn, 53% of the people surveyed disapprove of Obama’s job dealing with the shutdown. The country agreed that both the president and Republicans aren’t cooperating “enough” with each other. Fifty-two percent said Obama needs to negotiate more, and 63% reported Republicans needing to do so.
