Tracking the Approval Ratings of All 100 U.S. Senators
Morning Consult is conducting thousands of surveys every day, asking registered U.S. voters in all 50 states if they approve or disapprove of their senator’s job performance. Every quarter, we’ll update this page with the latest tracking data.
Sign up for the latest political news and analysis delivered to your inbox every morning, and access more information in our latest Senator Approval Outlook.
Key Takeaways
Sanders reclaims the top spot: For the first time in three years, independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont is the most popular senator in the country, ending Republican John Barrasso of Wyoming’s five-quarter run at the top.
McConnell remains the most unpopular: Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell remains America’s most unpopular senator for the 15th successive quarter. The Kentuckian’s popularity at home is yet to recover from steep declines suffered during the end days of the Trump administration at the turn of the 2020 election year.
Warning signs mount for two vulnerable Democrats: Jon Tester of Montana’s disapproval rating ticked up to 43% last quarter — the highest since early 2021 and 6 percentage points higher than it was at the same point of his last re-election campaign in 2018. Sherrod Brown of Ohio also saw his disapproval rating tick up 4 percentage points to 38%, an all-time high and 9 percentage points higher than at the same point in the 2018 cycle. See more in our latest Senator Approval Outlook.
Data Downloads
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America’s most popular and unpopular senators
- Tester fell into the top list of most unpopular governors this quarter, joining one other vulnerable Senate Democrat, Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, and vulnerable Republican Ted Cruz of Texas.
- Pete Ricketts of Nebraska and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska also moved into the top 10 most unpopular list, as retiring independents Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona dropped out of the list, along with Bob Menendez of New Jersey who resigned following his conviction on federal corruption charges.
- Angus King of Maine, an independent, was the lone new entrant into the most popular list, replacing Republican Cynthia Lummis of Wyoming.
Senators' approval ratings
- Democrat George Helmy of New Jersey is the chamber’s newest and most unknown senator after replacing Menendez last month: Most New Jersey voters (66%) said they either didn’t know who Helmy was or had no opinion about his job performance.
- JD Vance of Ohio, the GOP’s vice presidential candidate, remains a divisive figure at home as he hits the campaign trail. His approval rating ticked up from 42% to 44% as his disapproval rating rose from 36% to 39%. See more in our latest Senate Approval Outlook, where we detail which voter groups are most and least likely to approve of him.
Methodology
All state-level data is based on a three-month roll-up of responses from Morning Consult’s daily U.S. tracking survey among registered voters. Margins of error among registered voters vary by state, from as low as +/-6 percentage points in less populous states such as Wyoming to +/-1 point in more populous states such as California.
Consult our State-Level Tracking Methodology Primer for additional details on the state-level data sources, including sampling and data collection procedures, weighting and representativeness, margins of error, and question wording.
About Morning Consult
Morning Consult is a global decision intelligence company changing how modern leaders make smarter, faster, better decisions. The company pairs its proprietary high-frequency data with applied artificial intelligence to better inform decisions on what people think and how they will act. Learn more at morningconsult.com.
Eli Yokley is Morning Consult’s U.S. politics analyst. Eli joined Morning Consult in 2016 from Roll Call, where he reported on House and Senate campaigns after five years of covering state-level politics in the Show Me State while studying at the University of Missouri in Columbia, including contributions to The New York Times, Politico and The Daily Beast. Follow him on Twitter @eyokley. Interested in connecting with Eli to discuss his analysis or for a media engagement or speaking opportunity? Email [email protected].
Cameron Easley is Morning Consult’s head of U.S. Political Analysis. He has led Morning Consult's coverage of U.S. politics and elections since 2016, and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Politico, Axios, FiveThirtyEight and on Fox News, CNN and MSNBC. Cameron joined Morning Consult from Roll Call, where he was managing editor. He graduated from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Follow him on Twitter @cameron_easley. Interested in connecting with Cameron to discuss his analysis or for a media engagement or speaking opportunity? Email [email protected].
