Voters are anti-incumbent and angry, new poll finds
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Most Americans are angry about "something" when it comes to how the country is run, and they are more likely than in previous years to vote for a challenger this November, a new poll suggests.
A majority of Americans surveyed -- and a higher percentage than recorded during the same time last year -- said things in the United States are going "badly." Among this year's respondents, 29 percent said "pretty badly" and 25 percent -- up from 15 percent a month ago -- answered "very badly." By comparison, 37 percent described the way things are going as "fairly well," and 9 percent answered "very well."
Nine percent said they considered the economy to be "very good," a number unchanged from a June CNN poll. But the number who considered conditions "somewhat good" dropped from 42 percent to 35 percent over the same period. The number of respondents who consider the economy "somewhat poor" rose from 31 percent to 34 percent, and the number who called the economy "very poor" jumped from 16 percent to 22 percent.
Nonetheless, 48 percent said that, if most of the present members of Congress were replaced with new members, there would be no difference. By contrast, 42 percent said such a scenario would change Congress for the better, and 7 percent said it would change Congress for the worse.
The results, based on a half-sample of 1,004 adult Americans polled by Opinion Research Corporation for CNN Wednesday through Saturday have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.
More than 60 percent of those surveyed said government policies need either major changes or a complete overhaul, while 30 percent said minor changes were needed. Only 7 percent said no change is necessary.http://www.cnn.com/2006/POLITICS/09/04/poll.election/index.html