Recent polling from YouGov conducted in collaboration with frequent partner The Economist finds that nearly half of registered voters rate Congress as less effective in 2023 — when the House was under GOP control almost the whole time — than in 2022, when Democrats led.
“Congress” can sometimes be used to refer just to the House, and the phrasing of YouGov’s question used that language, though it’s not clear, of course, that every respondent understood the description in the same manner. Still, the one major difference from 2022 to 2023 was the House flipping. Forty-six percent from that subgroup of registered voters said 2023’s Congress accomplished “less than it did in 2022.” And the rest weren’t all on the inverse of that answer. About one-fourth, rather, said they weren’t even sure, and just seven percent — in single digits! — said Congress last year was, in fact, more effective.
Stalemate around a series of highly consequential debates seemingly reached a significant portion of Americans.
Involved issues included raising what’s termed the debt limit and, at a foundational level, simply funding the government, with Dems in the House now having repeatedly provided the votes necessary to get key deals over the finish line in the chamber despite the GOP currently having the majority!
A significant chunk of that GOP majority’s unfolding stint in power has been consumed by historically lengthy infighting over even who would serve as Speaker, with a weeks-long period late last year in which there was technically no Speaker and almost all business in the House ground to a halt. Republicans’ first Speaker, California GOP’er Kevin McCarthy, has resigned from Congress entirely after losing the steering role.
And Republicans in the House have repeatedly seemed more interested in pursuing quite party-specific agenda items, eliminating a range of possibilities for actually enacting something since Democrats still control the Senate for this two-year period. That includes Republicans’ many attempts at investigating the so-called weaponization of the federal government, Hunter Biden, Biden officials, and more.
