Most Voters View Pelosi, Reid Unfavorably, Give Mixed Marks to Boehner, McConnell

While the midterm elections initially brought some good will to the voter ratings for the top congressional leaders, the subsequent month seems to have taken it away. Ratings for the four leaders as the current session of Congress draws to a close have now fallen back to their pre-election levels, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey of Likely U.S. Voters.

Last month, House Republican leader and likely new Speaker of the House John Boehner received his highest favorable ranking to date with 41% who had a favorable opinion of him. This month, just 34% of voters hold a favorable opinion of Boehner, including 11% with a Very Favorable view. That’s more in line with findings in October.

The new survey also finds that 42% now hold an unfavorable opinion of the Ohio congressman, up from 39% last month. This includes 20% with a Very Unfavorable view. Twenty-four percent (24%) still don’t know enough about the Republican leader to offer an opinion. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The current speaker, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, remains the most unpopular congressional leader as she has been for nearly two years. Over half of voters (58%) hold an unfavorable opinion of Pelosi, including 43% with a Very Unfavorable opinion. Thirty-five percent (35%) view her favorably, with 13% who hold a Very Favorable regard for her.

By comparison, in November 2006, prior to Pelosi's election as speaker of the House, 24% viewed her favorably and 44% unfavorably.

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The survey of 1,000 Likely Voters nationwide was conducted on December 19-20, 2010 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.