Americans are heading into the November 3 midterm elections with confidence in Congress at historic lows. A new Gallup poll found that only 14% of Americans approve of the job Congress is doing, the lowest approval rating recorded immediately before a midterm election since Gallup began tracking the measure in 1974. Only 15% of registered voters believe most members of Congress deserve reelection, while just 43% believe their own representative should remain in office. That is the lowest reading for support of one’s own representative in Gallup’s final pre-midterm surveys dating back to 1994. Americans have traditionally criticized Congress while maintaining a more favorable opinion of their own representatives. Now even that distinction is deteriorating. The dissatisfaction extends across party lines, with congressional approval at 29% among Republicans, 13% among independents, and only 4% among Democrats.
The economy remains central to this discontent. Gallup found that 38% of Americans identified an economic issue as the nation’s most important problem, including inflation, the general economy, and gasoline prices. Another 26% specifically cited government or poor leadership. These concerns are closely connected. Households are paying substantially more for food, insurance, housing, energy, and everyday necessities than before the pandemic. Politicians continually speak about inflation as though the problem disappears when the annual percentage declines. The average family does not experience the economy through a government statistical release. They see the price of groceries, their mortgage payment, the cost of automobile insurance, and whatever money remains after taxes. Slower inflation does not reverse years of lost purchasing power.
Housing affordability has become another major economic dividing line. Younger Americans who did not purchase property before the enormous increase in prices and mortgage rates face a completely different financial environment from those who already own homes. Families with accumulated assets can help their children with down payments or even purchase homes outright, while those dependent entirely upon wages struggle to enter the market. The result is an economy increasingly divided between those who own appreciating assets and those attempting to acquire them. Washington can celebrate economic growth and employment statistics, but those figures do not necessarily reflect the financial circumstances of ordinary households.
The national debt is another issue that cannot be separated from the broader loss of confidence in government. Washington continues financing substantial expenditures through borrowing while interest payments consume an increasing share of federal resources. Both political parties have contributed to the accumulation of debt over successive administrations. The consequences do not disappear when control of Congress changes. The federal government must continually refinance its obligations while funding entitlement programs, defense expenditures, and countless other commitments. Politicians debate how to distribute additional spending while rarely confronting the long-term financial consequences of the obligations they have already created.
