On just about every empirical measurement - the President's approval rating, the approval rating of Congress, and the right direction/wrong track - the political environment is as bad or worse as it was for the then-majority Democrats in 1994. For Republicans who argue that voters may be mad at Congress, but still support their local incumbent, the most recent ABC News/Washington Post poll is a splash of cold water. The poll showed the lowest approval rating on the question of whether voters approve of the job of their own incumbent member of Congress - 55 percent - since 1994. More ominously for Republicans, there are no signs that the environment will get any better before November.
Publicly released polls taken in individual districts also tell a pretty ugly story for the incumbent party in Congress. Since the beginning of this year, we have seen 38 polls released by Democrats, or Democratic-related groups, while we have seen just five public polls released by Republicans or Republican-related groups. And, when you look at the individual polls, it is easy to understand why
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