Poll: Most voters still irked by Congress

WASHINGTON, May 18 (UPI) -- Unhappy Americans who rebuffed congressional incumbents in November still are dismayed with Capitol Hill, a USA Today-Gallup Poll released Wednesday indicates.

Sixty-three percent voters said most members of Congress don't deserve to be returned to office, matching a historic low reached last spring that culminated in Republicans taking over the House and making inroads in the Senate in November. Twenty-eight percent say most members should get another term in office, results indicated.

The failure of the new GOP majority in the House to turn around voters' attitudes shouldn't be a surprise, John Pitney, a congressional scholar at Claremont McKenna College in California, told USA Today.

"The economy is still in tough shape, and if people read stories in the paper about Congress, words like 'deadlock' and 'deficit' come up," Pitney said. "That's not a recipe for a happy electorate."

Republican voters were significantly more dissatisfied with Congress than Democratic voters, results indicated. Thirty-six percent of Democrats say most members of Congress deserve re-election compared with 26 percent of Republicans.

Sixty-nine percent of independents said most members of Congress should be sent packing, the poll said.

Results are based on a nationwide telephone survey of 897 registered voters conducted Thursday through Sunday. The margin of error is 4 percentage points.