May 18, 2009
CNN Poll: Pelosi facing Gingrich-like approval ratings
Posted: 05:11 PM ET

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week that she was misled by the CIA about the use of enhanced interrogation techniques.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — As Nancy Pelosi continues to face a firestorm over what she may have known about aggressive government interrogation techniques, and when, a new survey has more unpleasant news for the House Speaker.

Nearly half of all Americans — 48 percent — disapprove of how the California Democrat she is handling her job as Speaker of the House in a CNN/Opinion Research Corporation poll released Monday, while 39 percent approve of her performance.

That rating makes her less popular than other members of her party — congressional Democrats drew a 51 percent approval rating in last month's CNN/ORC survey — and roughly in line with the congressional GOP, which drew positive ratings in April from just 39 percent of those polled.

That puts her approval rating at roughly the levels Newt Gingrich had in his first year as Speaker of the House. (Back in 1995, Gingrich's approval rating was 37 percent; by 1997 — at the same point in his speakership that Pelosi is now — that had dropped to just 25 percent.)

The telephone poll of 1,010 Americans was conducted May 14-17, and has a sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/20 ... l-ratings/