The Independent View: Many Voters Want to Boot Their Own Member of Congress

The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls.

The HuffPost/YouGov poll was conducted Jan. 15 and Jan. 16 among 1,000 U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population. Factors considered include age, race, gender, education, employment, income, marital status, number of children, voter registration, time and location of Internet access, interest in politics, religion and church attendance.

According to the poll, 48 percent of Americans said they think their own member of Congress does not deserve reelection, while only 25 percent said their member of Congress does deserve reelection. By a 70 percent to 9 percent margin, Americans said most members of Congress do not deserve reelection. The poll shows anger at Congress, which peaked after October's government shutdown, isn't going away. Another HuffPost/YouGov poll conducted in November had similar findings.

A recent Gallup poll found that the share of Americans saying their own member of Congress deserves reelection (46 percent) and that most members of Congress deserve reelection (17 percent) were both at record lows since Gallup began tracking the measure in 1992. Thirty-six percent of respondents to that poll said their member of Congress did not deserve reelection.

An Associated Press survey released earlier this month found that only 33 percent of respondents said they'd like their own member of Congress reelected, while 64 percent said they would like to see someone else win their district.

Just because many Americans say they want their member of Congress replaced doesn't mean they will vote to do so in districts that are solidly in the grip of a single party. But safe congressional districts may shield many politicians from voter anger, the poll suggests.

Much of this anger was concentrated among those who reported a partisan mismatch between themselves and their members of Congress, more than three quarters of whom said the member of Congress did not deserve reelection. But with most congressional seats firmly in the grip of one party or the other, that sentiment may make little difference.

So we have an opportunity to put forward more independents, but we must give the voters' viable primary challengers.