Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during former President Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial on February 9, 2021.
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- A new poll found that most Republicans disapprove of the job Sen. Mitch McConnell is doing.
- The Senate minority leader had a lower overall approval rating than Kamala Harris, Anthony Fauci, and Joe Biden.
- Former President Trump continues to call for McConnell to be ousted as Senate Republican leader.
A new Gallup poll has found that just 52% of Republicans disapprove of the job that Mitch McConnell is doing as Senate minority leader as former President Donald Trump continues to call for the Kentucky Republican’s ouster.
Meanwhile, 46% of Republicans say they approve of McConnell — a dismal approval rating in comparison to the 71% approval rating by the same group for his counterpart in the other chamber, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
The poll asked voters about 11 major political figures, which included President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, congressional leaders, Dr. Anthony Fauci, and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts.
Roberts had the highest job approval rating out of all of the figures polled, with 60% overall — including 57% of Republicans and 55% of Democrats — while McConnell had the lowest: 34% overall.
McConnell also fared poorly in comparison to other congressional leaders; 40% of voters overall said they approved of the job done by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, while 44% said the same of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. McCarthy’s overall approval was 46%.
McConnell’s approval among Republicans, interestingly, is slightly better according to Gallup than in other polls. A recent The Economist/YouGov poll registered McConnell’s Republican approval at just 31%, while a Morning Consult/POLITICO poll found that 40% of Republicans approve of the minority leader’s job performance.
And McConnell’s approval among Republicans has apparently ticked upwards from a low in February 2021.
The Gallup poll included 811 adults, was conducted from December 1 through 16, and had 4 percentage point margin of error.
‘What is wrong with this Broken Old Crow?’
Trump and McConnell in the Oval Office on July 20, 2020.
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For months now, former President Donald Trump has sought to topple McConnell as leader of the Senate Republican Caucus.
Frequently referring to him as an “Old Crow,” Trump has criticized the Kentucky Republican for not sufficiently indulging his baseless claims of a stolen 2020 election, helping to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill, and cutting deals with Democrats to raise the debt ceiling.
“What is wrong with this Broken Old Crow?” said Trump in a December 12 statement. “He’s hurting the Republican Senators and the Republican Party. When will they vote him out of Leadership?”
The duo have not spoken since before the January 6 storming of the US Capitol, and McConnell denounced Trump as “practically and morally responsible” for the attack even as he announced that he would not vote to impeach the former president in the Senate trial after Trump left office.
Trump has harshly criticized McConnell for cutting deals with Senate Democrats to raise the debt ceiling, though Senate Republicans have largely shrugged off his remarks.
The former president has also claimed that a bipartisan infrastructure bill that was supported by 19 Republican senators had paved the way for the Democrat’s Build Back Better climate and social spending bill, which remains stalled amid opposition from Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
“Those 19 Republicans, including the Broken Old Crow, should not be forgotten for what they have done and the absolutely horrible ramifications this Bill will have on the future of our Nation,” Trump said in a December 7 statement.
McConnell has also recently expressed interest in the workings of the January 6 committee in the House, saying in a recent interview that the committee’s findings are “something the public needs to know.”
Trump, meanwhile, has repeatedly denounced the committee as the “Unselect Committee” and cast its efforts as part of a partisan witch hunt against him.
“Remember, the insurrection took place on November 3rd,” the former president declared in a December 21 statement, referring to the date of the 2020 election that he continues to claim was stolen from him despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
