Americans Don't Mind Their Senators

Worth Clicking: Blasts from the past wound Romney

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December 29, 2010

Americans Don't Mind Their Senators

Public Policy Polling is out with a treasure trove of public approval-disapproval ratings of senators in the second half of 2010, and finds that the average approval rating for a senator is 43% approving to 40% disapproving.

"That suggests the old adage that voters hate Congress but love their Congressman holds true...to an extent...maybe hate Congress but don't mind their Congressman is a better way of putting it. At any rate 37 Senators had positive approval numbers in our most recent polls while 22 had negative ones."

The senators with the highest net approval ratings are Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) at +30 points, Scott Brown (R-MA) at +24 and Judd Gregg (R-NH) at +23. Meanwhile, of the senators polled who are up for re-election in 2012, one is in an especially shaky position: Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) net approval is -21.

The least popular senator by far was former Sen. Roland Burris (D-IL), who had a net approval rating of -39.

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Taegan D. Goddard is the founder of Political Wire, one of the earliest and most influential political web sites.

Goddard spent more than a decade as managing director and chief operating officer of a prominent investment firm in New York City. Previously, he was a policy adviser to a U.S. Senator and Governor.

Goddard is also co-author of You Won - Now What? (Scribner, 1998), a political management book hailed by prominent journalists and politicians from both parties. In addition, Goddard's essays on politics and public policy have appeared in dozens of newspapers across the country, including the Washington Post, USA Today, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer and Christian Science Monitor.

Goddard earned degrees from Vassar College and Harvard University. He lives in New York with his wife and three sons.

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December 29, 2010