by Glynn Wilson

The tea party Republican Congress will go down in history, alright – as the worst rated, the most unpopular Congress in history.

A new record-low 11 percent of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, according to the latest survey on the subject, the lowest single rating in Gallup’s history of asking the question since 1974. This earns Congress a 17 percent yearly average for 2011, the lowest annual congressional approval rating in polling history.

This discord in Washington caps off a year in which Congress fought bitterly before reaching a last-minute agreement to lift the debt ceiling, instructing a bipartisan supercommittee to cut more than $1 trillion from federal spending by the end of November. That objective was not reached, and the supercommittee ultimately announced that it could not reach an agreement, and disbanded. Also, this majority-Republican Congress will be known as the “Do Nothing Congress,” for opposing anything and everything President Barack Obama proposed to get the economy moving again.

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by Glynn Wilson

It is now official. Georgia’s New Gingrich is the latest presidential candidate to rise to the top of the heap and then fall from Republican grace, leaving many Republicans wondering if they are ever going to get a credible nominee out of their bruising primary battle.

According to the latest Gallup surveys on the subject, Gingrich is in a 10-day free-fall from the front runner position in the Republican elephant race after enjoying a 15-point lead over Mitt Romney in early December. The race is now virtually tied, with 26 percent of Republican voters favoring Gingrich verses 24 percent for Romney.

“No other single candidate has benefited proportionately more from Gingrich’s 11-point decline over the past 10 days,” Gallup says. “Polling finds slight increases in support for the six remaining major candidates in the race, and to make matters worse for the Republicans, the percent favoring none of the candidates has gone up three points, from 14 to 17 percent.”

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A new Gallup poll shows a significant drop in enthusiasm on the part of Republicans for voting in the 2012 election, a reflection of the lack of a clear front runner and a credible candidate who could challenge President Barack Obama in November.

This is good news for Democrats, who have suffered their own drop in enthusiasm since Obama has not lived up to all the expectations of his promising campaign of progressive hope in 2008.

Republicans’ enthusiasm about voting in the election for president next year has gone down 9 points since September, according to Gallup. Only 49 percent of Republicans and independents who lean Republican say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, down from 58 percent in September. This narrows the gap between the Republicans and Democrats. Only 44 percent of Democrats say they are more enthusiastic than usual about voting, essentially the same percentage as shown in September.

Gallup has found that voting enthusiasm generally relates to the eventual election outcome in midterm and presidential election years. In election years in which one party has a clear advantage on enthusiasm, that party tends to fare better in the midterm elections or win the presidential election.

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Majorities of people in China and America now have a more positive view of the economy in China than the economy in the United States, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject.

According to recent comments on Facebook, the Chinese people may now be advising their kids not to throw away food, since it could go to feed a poor American family. Some reversal of fortune, eh? Thanks Republicans.

Majorities of Chinese and Americans in 2011 agree now is a bad time to find a job in the city or area where they live — but Americans are more negative, according to Gallup. Seventy-two percent of Americans say it is a bad time to find a job, compared with 56 percent of Chinese.

Chinese are also more positive about the general economic conditions where they live. Eighty percent of Chinese say the economic conditions in communities are getting better, while 5 percent say they are getting worse. This compares with the 48 percent of Americans who say their local economic conditions are getting better, while 43 percent say they are getting worse.

“Here again, Chinese attitudes have been fairly steady,” Gallup concludes, “while Americans’ have been more volatile.”

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But More Approve Than Disapprove of the Protests

A new Gallup poll has some heartening results for the Occupy Wall Street movement, in that more Americans approve than disapprove of the protests, although it shows that the lack of an effective communications strategy and coherent goals could jeopardize the movement’s effectiveness (see Further Analysis below).

Less than half of Americans express an opinion about the Occupy Wall Street movement’s goals or the way it has conducted its protests. Those with an opinion are more likely to approve than disapprove, however, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject.

The Occupy Wall Street movement has attracted significant alternative and mainstream media attention for its nearly month-long protest of major U.S. financial institutions in New York, with similar demonstrations taking place in other cities across the country in recent weeks.

“But the American public does not seem to be very familiar with the movement or its goals,” according to Gallup’s analysis of public opinion.

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by Glynn Wilson

A record-high 50 percent of Americans now say the use of marijuana should be legalized, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject, just as the Obama administration appears to be preparing a new Justice Department crackdown on medical marijuana.

This could be the wrong policy direction for a president who is now campaigning for a second term and will need as much of the Democratic base as possible to show up at the polls next November, along with a high number of independents and young voters, who favor legalizing marijuana overwhelmingly. If half of America’s 313 million people now favor legalizing marijuana, especially Democrats, independents and the young, then perhaps the administration should rethink its policy push.

The 50 percent number, up from 46 percent last year, is a record high on this question since Gallup first began asking it in 1969, when 12 percent of Americans favored it and 84 percent opposed. Support for legalizing marijuana remained in the mid-20 percent range from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, but it has continued to creep up ever since, passing 30 percent in 2000 and 40 percent in 2009 when, on the campaign trail, Barack Obama pledged to deemphasize federal enforcement against state programs to legalize medical marijuana.

A Gallup survey last year found that 70 percent favored making it legal for doctors to prescribe marijuana in order to reduce pain and suffering. Americans have consistently been more likely to favor the use of marijuana for medicinal purposes than to favor its legalization generally.

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The upward trend continues in Republicans’ ratings of business man and presidential candidate Herman Cain, as the downward slide continues in their ratings of arch-conservative Texas Gov. Rick Perry, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject.

Cain’s Positive Intensity Score has increased to 34 among Republicans familiar with him, while Perry’s has dropped to 7 in Gallup’s latest update. Cain’s score is the best any candidate has registered during the campaign this year.

The results are based on Gallup Daily tracking from Sept. 26 through Oct. 9. Cain and Perry have typically been among the leaders in positive intensity since Gallup began tracking their images, but their scores have diverged dramatically in recent weeks. The movement occurred after Cain’s win in the recent Florida straw poll and a series of shaky debate performances by Perry. Perry’s policies on illegal immigration may also have contributed to his decline.

The changes in Cain’s and Perry’s images have left Cain as the dominant leader in positive intensity — the difference between strongly favorable and strongly unfavorable opinions of each candidate among Republicans familiar with the candidate.

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The majority of Americans still do not have confidence in the mass media to report the news fully, accurately, and fairly, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject.

The 44 percent of Americans who have a great deal or fair amount of trust and the 55 percent who have little or no trust remain among the most negative views Gallup has measured.

The majority of Americans, 60 percent, also continue to perceive bias, with 47 percent saying the media are too liberal and 13 percent saying they are too conservative, on par with what Gallup found last year.

The percentage of Americans who say the media are “just about right” edged up to 36 percent this year but remains in the range Gallup has found historically.

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by Glynn Wilson

In spite of the noise from the online and cable news echo chamber, as well as the chatter on the tea party street, President Barack Obama is still a contender for re-election in 2012 and, if the election were held today, he would defeat Republican front runner Rick Perry in the popular vote, according to the latest Gallup poll on the subject.

President Obama leads the conservative Christian Texas Governor in the latest national public opinion survey by 50 percent to 45 percent.

Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney currently edges out President Barack Obama by 49 percent to 47 percent, although at this point the race is a dead heat that lies within the statistical margin of error.

Rick Perry is the Republican front runner in the race. He leads Romney by 31 percent to 24 percent and the two are well ahead of the rest of the GOP field, with Ron Paul the only other candidate in double figures.

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