Currently, more than 150 bills passed by the democratically-elected members of the House of Representatives have been passed but will never see the light of day in the Senate. Some of those bills are critical for boosting the economy and lifting workers out of poverty – and a disproportionate percentage of the working poor are in the state of Kentucky – approving a minimum wage hike to $15.00 an hour. That one will never be brought to the Senate for a vote, either.
The new Morning Consult Senator and Governor Rankings are out, based on over 480k survey interviews.
Senator Rankings: https://t.co/73wVyOjzSw
Governor Rankings: https://t.co/Ttcq0ANbgP
— Morning Consult (@MorningConsult) July 18, 2019
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has the power to decide which bills that have been passed by the House and then brought to the Senate floor. Earlier in the year, McConnell grinned and bragged that he considers himself the “grim reaper” of progressive politics. That obstructionism isn’t helping him much in the polls with voters in his state, and Morning Consult found that only 36 percent of all voters in Kentucky, a heavily Republican state, approve of the job McConnell is doing there.
According to the Lexington-Herald Leader:WASHINGTON
‘Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell raised a healthy $3 million for his 2020 re-election campaign from April through June and has a whopping $7.9 million in the bank. But just 9 percent of his campaign cash from large, individual donors came from his home state of Kentucky.
‘Instead, most of his money came from out-of-state donors, reflecting the Kentucky Republican’s strong influence on the Senate agenda and national interest in the race as the GOP strives to keep the Senate in its control.’
McConnell is currently on the “vulnerable” list of senators who will be running for reelection in 2020 along with Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA), and Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS). McConnell, however, has been the most unpopular senator in the country for quite some time and yet continues to be reelected. One can only hope that trend won’t hold.
According to Morning Consult:
‘Susan Collins is facing reelection next year, and views on her job performance have dimmed significantly over the first half of 2019. Forty-eight percent of Maine voters disapproved, compared with 45 percent who approved – a net slide of 16 percentage points from earlier in the year.’
The Morning Consult poll also provided some interesting insights into the two opposing political partys’ gender divide. While male lawmakers seem to get away with quite a lot more unpopularity with Republican voters, Democratic women tend to be more popular.
‘Whether evaluating senators of their own party or their own party, Republican voters tend to be more critical of women than of men. The average net approval for female Republican senators is 11 points lower than their male counterparts.
‘This trend doesn’t hold in the opposite direction – Democratic voters have a more favorable view of Democratic women senators than male ones, and only a slightly more negative view of female Republican senators than male ones.’
Hey, @SenatorCollins, apparently only @DitchMitch is more unpopular than you. 😘https://t.co/wMs3DOEmhg
— Diane Russell 🌹 (@MissWrite) July 19, 2019
Featured image via Flickr by Gage Skidmore under a Creative Commons license
