Sen. Bernie Sanders, I.-Vt., is the most popular politician amongst his constituents — even as Senate approval ratings are falling drastically, according to a new Morning Consult poll.
The longest-serving independent in Congressional history holds a 75 percent approval rating among his constituents and only a 21 percent disapproval rating, according to the poll. That gives Sanders the highest approval rating in the Senate. In second place is Sen. Brian Schatz, D.-Hawaii, with 69 percent of his constituents approving of his job. Senators Mazie Hirono (D.-Hawaii), John Hoeven (R.-N.D.) and Patrick Leahy (D.-Vt.), rounded out the top five.
Sanders was also named the most popular politician in the entire country in a March 2017 Fox News poll. In that poll, he held a 61 percent approval rating among those polled across the whole country.
The new Morning Consult poll surveyed 141,400 registered voters starting from April and finished on June 18. "In each poll, Americans indicated whether they approve or disapprove of the job performance of President Donald Trump, their state’s governor, both of their U.S. senators, their member of Congress and their mayor (if they live in a city with more than about 10,000 residents)," Morning Consult wrote in a paper on their methodology.
The senators least liked by their constituents included Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R.-Ky., who ranked dead last, with a disapproval rating of 48 percent, according to the poll. McConnell held a 41 percent approval rating. Only Sen. Jeff Flake R-Ariz., is lower in that column, with 37 percent approving.
Morning Consult's poll comes at a time when voters have grown increasingly frustrated with Congress. "More than half of all senators saw negative swings in net approval outside of the surveys’ margins of error in their respective states. . . By comparison, over 20 senators saw their net approval rating decrease in the first quarter of the year from the 2016 pre-election rankings," Morning Consult explained.
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