It’s no secret that Americans loathe Congress, but instead of stepping up and trying to change anything, many Americans are tuning the midterm elections out completely.
A new NBC News/ Wall Street Journal poll reveals that only 50% of Americans have a high interest in the midterm elections, which has dropped by 1% from June. “This Great American turnout isn’t all that surprising when you consider that the two most important issues in the poll are 1) the economy, 2) and breaking the partisan gridlock in Washington,” NBC/WSJ co-pollster Fred Yang says.
These finding should come as no surprise as this new poll reveals just 12% of voters approve of the job Congress is doing and only 30% say their member of Congress deserves to be re-elected.
A new Gallup poll has similar results with 81% of Americans believing that most members of Congress are out of touch but when it comes to their own Representative the results differ as only 47% say that their Congressman or Senator is out of touch with the average American.
“Given that Congress consist of members elected from districts across the U.S., the only real action Americans can take to change the makeup of Congress is to vote against their incumbent,” Frank Newport reports. “Americans’ relatively positive attitudes about their local representatives, spread out across 435 congressional elections, help explain why so many member of Congress return to Washington year after year even while these same American so negatively assail the institution to which these member belong.”