MORALE BOOST – AT 7:53 A.M. ET:  A new poll out this morning provides a needed smile for the troops on our side, but will bring a grimace to Nancy Pelosi.  From Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times's Top of the Ticket blog: 

Now that Democratic majorities in both houses of Congress are back at work after another vacation, their decline in voter approval has resumed in the polls.

A new Gallup/USA Today Poll conducted last week and published this morning reveals that Americans' approval of Congress, controlled by Democrats since January 2007, has dropped another point from August, down to 18%.

Fully 77 out of every 100 Americans disapproves of the job Congress is doing, up from 73% last spring.

The new poll numbers, especially if reiterated by others in coming days, are likely to force the fall's political storyline back on the Democrats' Day of Reckoning, Nov. 2, and off of preferred distractions such as the Tea Party's political spell over so many.

On that last point, see our first post this morning.

Particularly worrisome for Democrats, with President Obama's first midterm elections looming....

...in just 43 days, is that the approval of Congress has already sunk below the lowest Gallup approval ever recorded in a midterm year, the 21% recorded in 1994 and 2006.

And everyone remembers what happened in those two years -- both times unhappy American voters collectively turned both houses of Congress over to the minority party, to the Republicans in '94 and the Democrats in '06.

COMMENT:  The Senate looks very difficult for the GOP to capture.  But the House is well within reason.  Question:  Will Obama pull some kind of October surprise to change the outcome?  You can be sure they're thinking at the White House.  When it comes to politicking, rather than governing, they're thinking all the time.

September 20, 2010