March 5, 2025
Expand Your Scope
While working out today at the gym, I caught this statistic on Fox News in the context of reactions to Trump's March 4 speech to Congress:
21% of voters approve of Democratic leadership in Congress
I don't recall seeing a citation for that number, but with a little searching, it comes from a poll conducted by Quinnipiac University published on February 19, 2025: https://poll.qu.edu/poll-release?releaseid=3919
Thinking there might be more to the story than a record low number of people approving of Democrats, here's more from the same poll that wasn't included in the Fox News coverage:
- 21% of Democratic voters approve of Democratic leadership in Congress
- 40% of Republican voters approve of Republican leadership in Congress
- 49% of Democratic voters disapprove of Democratic leadership in Congress
- 52% of Republican voters disapprove of Republican leadership in Congress
When it comes to disapproval ratings, Republicans lead Democrats. This was not part of the Fox coverage I saw.
Moreover, the 21% approval statistic was inserted into a broadcast about Democratic behavior during Trump's Joint Session of Congress speech last night. The poll results shed no light on people's reactions to Democrats on March 4, since it was taken in mid-February. The dates don't match up--always an important fact to check.
There are certainly more details in the Quinnipiac poll than reported here, and certainly more than what Fox News reported.
It helps to expand one's scope to make sense of numbers.
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