Oh, I suppose Gallup thought the headline was something else, but
A fairly large proportion of voters (35%) are unsure whether their member of Congress is a Democrat or a Republican. But among those who are aware, the data suggest that Democratic members might be a little safer this year than Republicans.
Now let that be a lesson to those of you who think the public really lives and dies on which way the Gallup tracker points to today.
But we know not everyone is paying attention.
[Pew: In the past week] Did you follow news about candidates for the 2008 presidential election very closely, fairly closely, not too closely or not at all closely?
30% very closely
34% fairly closely
21% not too closely
15% not closely at all
less than 1% don't know/refused
Or, to put it another way as pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal does:
These data paint a clear picture for me: Most Americans are paying far less attention to news about the campaign than most journalists, pundits and readers of this site. If we assume that all Americans are following the campaign as a jury follows a trial, we are in error.
In other news, voters are unhappy, the sun rises in the east, and the GOP candidate is running a negative campaign. And more Gallup:
In a year when approval of Congress has reached a new low, just 36% of U.S. registered voters say most members of Congress deserve re-election. This is among the lowest ratings Gallup has measured in a recent presidential or congressional election year.
But, as usual, MY congressman is okay, it's YOUR congressman who is screwing the country.
Fifty-seven percent of registered voters say the U.S. representative from their own congressional district deserves to be re-elected. That, too, is on the low end of what Gallup has measured historically for one's own member, slightly higher than the 1994 (54%) and 2006 (54%) readings, and somewhat better still than the all-time low of 48% in 1992.
Frankly, it's much more interesting that a third of the public can't tell which party their own rascal congressperson belongs to. I wonder if they live in districts where the Republican pretends to be a Democrat, at least at election time.