Voters are evenly divided at 46 percent on whether they approve or disapprove of the way President Obama is doing his job as president, according to a Fox News poll taken Nov. 17-18.

Fox said 46 percent marked a low point in Obama's approval since taking office, which has averaged 56 percent. The high point for his approval in a Fox News poll came a week after his inauguration when it was 65 percent.

Low point or not, the president is better at his job than Congress, which has an approval rating of 26 percent and disapproval of 63 percent, according to the Fox poll.

A majority of voters -- 53 percent -- do not want to see most members of Congress returned to office next year, according to a telephone survey conducted Oct. 28-Nov. 8 by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

However, perhaps reinforcing the old political adage that "all politics is local," a similar number (52 percent) support the re-election of the representative from their own district.

Of the 1,644 registered voters surveyed, only about a third (34 percent) believe that most representatives deserve another term. That figure is similar to findings before the 1994 and 2006 midterm elections; in both those instances, the party in power -- Democrats in 1994 and Republicans in 2006 -- suffered significant defeats and lost its majority in the House.

Leaders in Congress have seen their approval ratings decline in the last six months, according to a poll taken Sept. 30-Oct. 4 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

And maybe the unkindest cut of all is that the trend cuts across party lines, as Democrats and Republicans are losing faith in the leaders of their own parties.

Last March, the approval rate for the Democratic leadership in Congress was 47 percent, but now it has tumbled to 33 percent; in the same period approval for the GOP leadership has withered from 28 percent to 24 percent.

A pair of new polls show the public's opinion of Congress is back in the cellar near where it began the year.

Despite what has happened with the economy, people seem to be in a reasonably good mood, according to an AP-GfK poll taken Oct. 1-5 in which 78 percent of the respondents said they were happy - 34 percent considering themselves "very happy" and 44 percent who say they're "somewhat happy."

And they like President Obama, whose approval rating for the way he's handling his job was 56 percent - about half of which came from people who strongly approved of his work as president.

Not so much for Congress, though, where the approval rating is 33 percent (just 3 percent saying they strongly approve), and the disapproval rating is 64 percent - more than half of whom say they strongly disapprove.

Public disapproval of the way Congress is doing its job is a 3-1 runaway over public approval, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll taken Sept. 17-20.

Public approval of Congress stood at 22 percent, while disapproval was 66 percent, according to the poll. As bad as that may sound, it's not as bad as it has been. Last October, the same poll found public approval of Congress was 12 percent.

Despite their low opinion of how Congress is doing, people responding to the survey aren't crazy about their choices: 41 percent feel positive about the Democratic Party, which now controls both houses of Congress, and 39 percent have negative feelings. Republicans are not in a strong position to capitalize on that. Twenty-eight percent have positive feelings toward the GOP, and 43 percent are negative.

In yet another measure of the low regard people have for Congress, just 45 percent of American adults say they trust the government's legislative branch, according to a Gallup poll conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 2.

That puts Congress in third place, behind the federal courts (76 percent) and the executive branch (61 percent).

Gallup also polled at the same time on approval ratings, and Congress came in third there, too, with 31 percent.

Members of Congress hosting town-hall meetings with their constituents should clam up and listen instead of doing most of the talking, according to a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted Aug. 31-Sept. 1.

Fifty-six percent of the respondents said it's more important for the members of Congress to hear what their constituents have on their minds than to explain the legislation. Thirty-seven percent say they want to hear from their representatives.

Forty-nine percent say they hold a favorable view of members of Congress who oppose overhauling the health care system, and 59 percent say the protesters at town hall meetings are citizens expressing legitimate concerns, while 30 percent say they are planted at the meetings by lobbyists and interest groups.

The results are drawn from telephone interviews with 1,000 likely voters nationwide and carry a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

While slightly more than half of Americans said they currently oppose President Obama's health care overhaul proposal, almost the same number agree that some kind of overhaul is needed, according to a CNN/Opinion Research poll conducted Aug. 28-31.

The telephone survey of 1,010 adults found that 51 percent of those polled said they oppose Obama's plan and 45 percent said they favor it.

To the question, "Do you think the country's health care system needs a great deal of reform, only some reform, or no reform at all?" 45 percent said, a "great deal," 46 percent said, "only some," and 7 percent favored no changes to the current system.

Obama has scheduled a Sept. 9 address to a joint session of Congress and renew his call to pass legislation retooling the health insurance market this year. He is likely to more thoroughly detail his expectations for an overhaul, including what he deems an acceptable fallback to a public insurance plan that would compete against private insurers.

The news isn't good at the moment for members of Congress hoping to hang onto their jobs next year. A poll conducted Aug. 20-27 by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found favorable public opinion toward the Congress, now at 37 percent, to be at its lowest point in more than 20 years.

The poll also found that 52 percent of respondents had an unfavorable opinion of Congress.

Democrats, who control both houses of Congress, are bearing the brunt of the public's wrath.

"Throw the bums out" goes beyond baseball: More than half of voters said they would vote to replace the entire Congress, according to a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted Aug. 27-28.

In the telephone survey of 1,000 voters, just 25 percent told pollsters they would vote to keep the current roster of lawmakers, while 18 percent said they are not sure how they would vote.

The current numbers show little change since October. When Congress was passing the $700 billion bailout plan during the presidential campaign and an impending meltdown of the financial industry, 59 percent wanted to throw out all members and 17 percent wanted to keep them.

The number of Americans with a favorable view of the Democratic Party has dipped below 50 percent for the first time since President Obama’s inauguration, according to a new poll released Wednesday by the Pew Research Center.

The poll found that just 49 percent of Americans have a good opinion of the party that controls Congress and the White House. Sixty-two percent had a favorable opinion in a similar poll conducted shortly after Obama took office, and in April, 59 percent of Americans were still supportive of the Democrats.

The survey of 2,010 people, conducted Aug. 11-17, also found that 51 percent still approve of Obama’s job performance, while 37 percent disapprove. But the president has lost a lot of ground with independents, who are now almost evenly divided in their opinions of Obama’s job performance. Forty-five percent approve of what he’s doing, and 43 percent disapprove.

In June, 56 percent of independents approved of Obama’s performance to just 29 percent who disapproved. At the same time, only 40 percent of independents have a favorable view of the Democratic Party, which is a decline of 12 points since April.

The health care overhaul plans wending their way through Congress are not generating much enthusiam among the electorate according to a Rasmussen Reports survey, which found 54 percent say no health care overhaul passed by Congress this year would be the better option.

The survey, conducted Aug. 13-14, showed 35 percent of Americans say passing a bill would be better than not passing any health care overhaul legislation this year.

Most voters do not oppose health care overhaul, the survey said, but the results highlight the level of concern about the specific proposals that congressional Democrats have approved in a series of committees. To this point, there has been no Republican support for the legislative effort, although the Senate Finance Committee is still working toward a bipartisan solution.

Fiery town hall meetings and concern about costs are stoking opposition to President Obama and congressional Democrats' effort to overhaul the U.S. health care system, a Rasmussen Reports survey conducted Aug. 9-10 shows.

The national telephone suvey of 1,000 likely voters found public support for an overhaul falling to a new low of 42 percent. That is 5 percent lower than two weeks ago and 8 points down from six weeks ago.

It also found found 44 percent of respondents strongly oppose the effort while just 26 percent strongly favor it. Most of the stiffest resistance comes from individuals over age 65.

The survey showed a predictable partisan split, with nearly seven in 10 Democrats favoring the overhaul and an almost equal proportion of GOP voters opposed. However, 62 percent of self-described unaffiliated voters now oppose the plan, signaling further erosion among political independents.

Democrats have lost ground on the question of which party would make the country better off by controlling Congress, a poll conducted by Opinion Research Corp. July 31 to Aug. 4 for CNN.

Forty-four percent said the country would be better off if Democrats controlled Congress, a drop of 5 percentage points for Democrats from an April survey, when 49 percent favored them to run the Congress.

Republicans, though, didn't pick up any of the Democrats' lost support. The GOP held steady with 34 percent saying the country would be better off with them in charge.

The Democratic defectors instead opted for a third choice: "Neither," which rose from 11 percent to 14 percent, according to the CNN poll. T The poll was based on telephone interviews with 1,136 American adults and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

"Fear" is the operative word in consumers' attitudes toward health care overhaul, says a Rasmussen poll conducted Aug. 7-8 -- fear of losing one's current insurance, fear of a government "takeover" and not being sure of what to fear most.

The survey of 1,000 voters showed 51 percent fear the federal government more than private insurance companies; the answer was the other way around for 41 percent of those surveyed and 7 percent weren't sure.

More than half -- 53 percent -- of those with insurance said they fear the government more than insurance companies while 39 percent took the opposite view. Those without insurance said they fear the insurance companies more.

Adults under 30 fear the insurance companies more while those in their 40s are evenly divided. However, a solid majority of those over 40 fear the government more.

Congress is considering a controversial environmental proposal called cap-and-trade, but a new Rasmussen poll shows few voters actually know what the term means.

Broadly speaking, cap-and-trade proposals involve having the government set limits on what pollutants can be emitted. Then it auctions off permits for certain emissions and allows companies to trade the permits as needed

The poll gave respondents a choice of three options. Just 24 percent correctly identifed the cap-and-trade proposal as something that deals with environmental issues. A slightly higher number, 29 percent, believe it has something to do with regulating Wall Street, while 17 percent think the term applies to health care overhaul. And 30 percent have no idea. The poll's margin of error was plus or minus 3 percentage points

If the Pew Research Center survey we posted earlier depressed you with the grim view Americans have the economy, take a look at the new CNN/Opinion Research poll which says that only 24 percent have a positive outlook for the country while 76 percent believe things are on the wrong track. The poll was conducted July 27-29.

"Only three events -- Watergate, the Iran hostage crisis, and the economic downturn of 1992 -- have driven below 30 percent the number who think things are going well," CNN's polling director Keating Holland said.

Twenty-two percent approve of the way Congress is doing its job and 77 percent disapprove. The Democratic leaders of Congress get positive marks from only 36 percent, not much higher than President Bush's 30 percent approval rating.

Congress has scored its lowest marks yet when it comes to approval of the way it is doing its job says a Rasmussen Reports poll conducted .July 1. Only 9 percent of respondents in this poll said Congress was doing a good or excellent job and 62 percent do not believe that Congress, over the last year, has passed any legislation that will significantly improve life in the U.S. Asked whether over the next year if they believed Congress will address the most important problems facing the nation, voters said by a 55 percent to 41 percent margin that it was not very likely. Seventy-two percent said members of Congress were more interested in their own careers than helping people.