{"id":20318,"date":"2017-03-12T03:14:32","date_gmt":"2017-03-12T03:14:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20318"},"modified":"2017-03-12T03:14:32","modified_gmt":"2017-03-12T03:14:32","slug":"congress-sees-spike-in-approval-rating-what-gives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20318","title":{"rendered":"Congress sees spike in approval rating &#8230; what gives?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/house-of-representatives-113th-congress.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-20319\" src=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/house-of-representatives-113th-congress-300x169.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/house-of-representatives-113th-congress-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/house-of-representatives-113th-congress-768x432.jpg 768w, https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/03\/house-of-representatives-113th-congress-1024x576.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<div class=\"wp-caption-dd\"><span style=\"color: #767676; background-color: transparent;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<p>Given my occasional fascination with public opinion polls, I want to share an observation\u00a0about RealClearPolitics&#8217; average of polls.<\/p>\n<p>It is that public approval of Congress has spiked up about 10 percentage points since Donald J. Trump became president.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.realclearpolitics.com\/epolls\/other\/congressional_job_approval-903.html\">Why is that? <\/a>I think it&#8217;s a\u00a0legitimate question. I might have the answer, although I could be coming at this from <em>deep left field<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>It well might be that the public sees the president of the United States as the greater threat to the nation&#8217;s stability. RCP&#8217;s average of polls puts Congress&#8217;s approval rating at more than 22 percent. During the eight years that Barack Obama was president, the RCP poll average usually pegged Congress&#8217;s approval in the low teens, occasionally dipping into <em>single digits<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Might it be that the public saw Congress less favorably during President Obama&#8217;s time because respondents were concerned about the continual obstruction orchestrated by the Republican Party leadership?<\/p>\n<p>Moreover, might it now be that the RCP polling reflects a public view that Congress can act as a check against the current president&#8217;s reckless rhetoric and fickle policy pronouncements?<\/p>\n<p>Just thinking out loud, dear reader.<\/p>\n<p>Your thoughts?<\/p>\n\n<div class=\"twitter-share\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?via=jkanelis\" class=\"twitter-share-button\">Tweet<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0 Given my occasional fascination with public opinion polls, I want to share an observation\u00a0about RealClearPolitics&#8217; average of polls. It is that public approval of Congress has spiked up about 10 percentage points since Donald J. Trump became president. Why is that? I think it&#8217;s a\u00a0legitimate question. I might have the answer, although I could &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=20318\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Congress sees spike in approval rating &#8230; what gives?<\/span> <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,14],"tags":[540,849,1112,1424,1941,3853],"class_list":["post-20318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-national-news","category-political-news","tag-barack-obama","tag-capitol-hill","tag-congress","tag-donald-trump","tag-gop","tag-realclearpolitics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=20318"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20320,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20318\/revisions\/20320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=20318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=20318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=20318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}