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House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who's been in his role for just under one month, is still relatively unknown to the American electorate, per a new NBC News national poll.
When asked about their views of Johnson, 43% of voters responded that they do not know who Johnson is or do not recognize his name.
Among voters who do know who Johnson is, 14% say they have a positive view of him and 23% say they have a negative view of him. An additional 20% of voters view him neutrally.
Still, Johnson's favorability ratings are currently higher than former Speaker Kevin McCarthy's were in September, shortly before he was ousted from the role.
Back then, 39% of voters viewed McCarthy negatively and 16% viewed him positively.
At the time, among just Republican registered voters, 31% said they viewed McCarthy positively.
That tracks with Johnson's favorability rating among GOP voters now -- 31% say they view him favorably.
And, just 6% of GOP voters say they view him negatively. That indicates that despite sharing a favorability rating among Republican voters with McCarthy, Johnson is less widely known than the former speaker.
In the recent history of the NBC News poll, most GOP speakers find themselves underwater with voters, though not by as much as McCarthy and Johnson found themselves this year.
In 2016, then-Speaker Paul Ryan was viewed positively by 26% of the electorate and 28% viewed him negatively,
In 2011, 21% of voters said they viewed then-Speaker John Boehner negatively and 20% said they viewed him positively -- just a one-point gap.
The NBC News poll was conducted Nov. 10-14 and surveyed 1,000 registered voters — 833 by cellphone — and it has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
