A recent Rasmussen Reports survey confirms that we are not alone in our antipathy for today’s Congress. Only one-in-five voters think members of Congress listen to their constituents, and a majority say a random collection of people would do a better job.
The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that 54% of Likely U.S. Voters believe a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation’s problems than the current Congress. That’s up five points from December 2022, and beats the previous all-time high of 52% in July 2014. Twenty-seven percent (27%) disagree and do not think a randomly selected group could do a better job. Twenty percent (20%) are not sure.
Just 20% believe the average representative in Congress listens most to the voters he or she represents. Most (67%) think they listen to party leaders in Congress, consistent with regular findings since September 2010. Twelve percent (12%) are not sure.
The survey of 1,087 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on May 7-9, 2024 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
More Democrats (33%) than Republicans (15%) or voters not affiliated with either major party (13%) think the average representative in Congress listens most to the voters he or she represents. Seventy-one percent (71%) of Republicans, 57% of Democrats and 75% of unaffiliated voters say representatives listen more to party leaders in Congress.
Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Republicans, 46% of Democrats and 58% of unaffiliated voters believe a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation’s problems than the current Congress.
Among voters who think the average representative in Congress listens most to party leaders, 59% say a random selection of people could do better than the current Congress.
There’s not much of a “gender gap” on these questions, as majorities of both men (57%) and women (51%) believe people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job than the current Congress.
Seventy-one percent (71%) of whites, 55% of black voters, and 62% of Hispanics and other minorities think the average representative in Congress listens most to party leaders.
Voters under 40 are about twice as likely as their elders to say the average representative in Congress listens most to the voters he or she represents.
Breaking down the electorate by income categories, voters earning between $30,000 and $50,000 are most likely to believe a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation’s problems than the current Congress.
The survey results showing voters at the lower end of the income spectrum should surprise no one. Afterall they are the citizens most likely to need government services and least likely to have the kind of access to Congress to lobby for them. They are also the most likely to notice that entitled college kids, illegal aliens and alphabet people are put at the head of the line for what services are available – like student loan forgiveness, and the free phones and free housing given to illegal aliens.
If the Republican Party was smart (it isn’t) Republican candidates for Congress would be all over the pointers in this Rasmussen survey. They would be campaigning in every poor neighborhood in their districts and hit every house with mailers asking how they can help and criticizing the out-of-touch elite running Washington. But Republican Party leaders aren’t smart, which is why a majority of voters think a group of people selected at random from the phone book would do a better job addressing the nation’s problems than they are doing.
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