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I don't generally track approval ratings for Congress since they are usually unreliable, but today's numbers are actually pretty interesting because -- and I really didn't see this coming -- Republicans in Congress have lower approval ratings that President Bush does.
For December 12th-14th, 29% of the country (representative polling) still approves of the job the President is doing, which is likely to tick up as we get closer to the next administration's inauguration for a couple of reasons. First and foremost, conservatives that hold a dim view of Bush but do not hold strong feelings either way are very likely to be more forgiving towards his record of accomplishments, ruminating the good things and giving a free pass to the bad.
Moreover, Obama's inauguration will be a sore spot for them after having lost an election, and that old "my guy may have sucked, but he's way better than the other party" mentality is likely to excuse lesser failures and embarrassments.
While Bush still rests below 30%, President-elect Obama's transition favorables has risen to an all-time high of 75% even with four full days of coverage of the Illinois Governor scandal. It now appears unlikely that Obama will be hurt by Gov. Rod Blagojevich at all.
Congressional polling is a mixed bag on a number of levels, though. Typically, voters of the minority party will give extremely bad ratings regardless of what the Congress actually does, simply as a partisan, adolescent show of displeasure. This tends to happen with Republicans more than Democrats, so make of that what you will. Beyond that, voters of the majority party will also give low ratings for a lack of accomplishment which isn't always the fault of the party in power, but is credited to them nonetheless. These two things together means that Congress on a whole pretty much always has terrible ratings
That brings us to the Congressional approval ratings.
Just 25% of the country approves of the job that Republicans in Congress are doing, a new record low according to Gallup, down a point from the previous record low of 26% set by Republicans last year. The GOP has lost 34 points off their approval ratings since setting a high mark of 59% in 2002. Their job approval rating has dropped every single month since the beginning of the Iraq war. Republicans held a high of 55 seats in the Senate as of 2004, but will have either 42, or 41 depending on the outcome of the disputed race in Minnesota come January -- this represents a loss of nearly one quarter of their ranks in four years, a loss exceeded only by their approval numbers.
In comparison, Democrats have suffered falling ratings over that period as well, though not nearly as bad. 37% of the country approves of the job that Democrats are doing in Congress, up for 30% at the beginning of the year. Democrats captured control of Congress during the 2006 mid-term elections at a time when their party's approval rating was actually higher than it is today, at 41%. 2008 saw a partial recovery and significant gains in number of seats held in both houses in November. Democrats had a high mark of 57% at roughly the same time as Republicans had a 59% approval rating, largely a result of faux patriotism and support for a war that the public has turned against by a large majority.
Democrats averaged about 41% as the minority party from 2005-2007 but the steep downturn I think can largely be attributed to the public turning against the war, and Democrats' unfulfilled promises to end it.
As for Bush, according to Gallup, he hasn't been above 40% since the fall of 2006. The average job approval rating for his second term of 36.5% is second only to Richard Nixon's low of 34.4%, a difference of about 2.1%, and owns the longest streak of consecutive months below 40% since Harry Truman.
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