(DCWatchdog.com) – A new poll has found that after barely seven months on the job, the GOP Speaker of the US House of Representatives, Kevin McCarthy, enjoys the best public favorability rating of any leader in today’s Congress.
The survey by pro-right pollster Rasmussen Reports discovered that McCarthy, a Republican from California, is viewed favorably by 42% of likely election voters, Breitbart News reports.
At the same time, 41% of the respondents had a negative view of him for a positive overall net rating of +1%. The remaining 17% of those polled were unsure about their thoughts on the House Speaker.
At the same time, the top Democrat in the House, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, scored a net favorability rating of -1%, according to the pollster.
The House Minority Leader, who succeeded Nancy Pelosi as chief of the House Democrats in January, is seen favorably by 34% of the respondents.
However, 35% view him unfavorably, and the remaining 31% say they aren’t sure how they feel about him.
Unlike McCarthy, the top Republican in the Senate, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, fares very badly with the American public, according to the survey.
The 81-year-old Kentucky Republican, who last week perplexingly froze during a press conference for about 20 seconds, has a negative favorability rating of -38%.
Only 26% of those polled view him favorably, while 64% have the opposite views, and another 10% are unsure. Only 6% of likely US voters see McConnell “very positively.”
On the Democrat side of the aisle, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) seems to be doing somewhat better, though his overall favorability rating is still notably negative at -15%.
According to Rasmussen, 52% of the respondents think unfavorably of the New York Democrat, while 37% hold a positive view of him, while 11% don’t have an opinion.
The poll surveyed 1,002 likely voters nationwide on July 12 and July 17-18. It has a margin of error of 3 percentage points.
McCarthy’s highest favorability rating comes after, in the second quarter of 2023, he beat Jeffries by fundraising $21 million compared with the Democrat’s $6 million.
McCarthy and the National Republican Congressional Committee raised a combined total of $47 million, while Jeffries and the Democrat Congressional Campaign Committee scored $35 million.
House Speaker Kevin McCarthy has the strongest favorability rating of any Congressional leader, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll. https://t.co/aA25qTGqbB
— Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) July 30, 2023
