The Congress

Congress finished 2011 with an 11% job approval rating. This is the lowest positive score ever recorded by Gallup. The most negative are Independents, who offer a positive score of 7%. They are followed by Republicans at 12%, and 14% of Democrats. As recently as May 2011, 24% approved the work of the Congress.

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The U.S. Senate

The main event that affected the Senate races since the last Watch is the decision of Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) to forego a re-election race. This decision tilts the Nebraska seat from Toss Up to Lean Republican. moves from Toss Up to Lean Republican.

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The U.S. Senate

• Democrats 51
• Republicans 47
• Independents 2 (caucus Dem)

Here is how the 33 Senate elections -- 23 Democratic incumbents (includes 2 Independents), 10 Republican incumbents -- look to me at this time . (D=Dem incumbent in office, R=GOP incumbent in office, I=Ind. Incumbent in office) Underlining reflects retirement.

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The House of Representatives

There are an array of opinions as to whether the Republicans will sustain their majority control of the House after the November election. There are the usual predictions from this stage of the election cycle extolling how well the minority Party is doing in candidate recruitment.

At this time it appears most likely that the Republicans will retain control of the House, but with a lower margin. If that does, in fact, happen, the interesting question is whether Eric Cantor will challenge John Boehner for the Speakership.

WW has regularly reprinted the “House Dashboard” published by the Cook Political Report. The data from January 20, 2011 is from the Dashboard. However, the Dashboard is not being published at this time because of the uncertainties caused by re-districting. Therefore, the chart below (other than 1/20/11) reflects the Cook’s current Competitive House Race Chart through January 2012 . [As always, thanks to “The Cook Political Report.” ] 

The U.S. House of Representatives

• Republicans 242
• Democrats 192
• Vacancy 1 (D)

The Rothenberg Political Report has posted a report that deals with the entire House. It reports the following:

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