Senate

Poll: Sanders most popular senator, Flake least

by John Bowden - 01/10/19 5:03 PM ET

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) remains Americans’ most popular senator, while departing Arizona Sen. Jeff Flake (R) is the least popular member of Congress’s upper chamber.

A Morning Consult poll released Thursday found that Sanders enjoys the support of 64 percent of voters in his state.

The number is highest level recorded among any sitting senator and places him in the top spot for the 11th poll in a row, according to Morning Consult’s pollsters. Just 28 percent of Vermont voters disapproved of the job the senator is doing, according to the poll.

{mosads}His fellow Vermonter, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D), sat in 2nd place on the rankings list, with 62 percent support in the state. Leahy’s approval numbers were tied with Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso (R) on the poll, though Barrasso faced slightly higher disapproval numbers.

Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski (Alaska.) and Cindy Hyde-Smith (MI) experienced the greatest drops in net support between Thursday’s poll and a previous Morning Consult survey last year, dropping 10 percent approval in their home states in a matter of months.

Flake, who remained a vocal opponent of the president’s style in the last year of his term saw the highest disapproval rating of any senator, 49 percent, while just 28 percent of Arizonans said he was doing a good job. Flake is reportedly considering a position at CBS News following his departure from the Senate this month.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), previously the lowest-ranked senator on the poll, rose slightly to surpass both Flake and Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill (D), who was defeated in November, in terms of popularity. 47 percent of voters in Kentucky say they disapprove of the job the top GOP senator is doing, compared to 38 percent who approve.

Morning Consult’s poll was conducted between Oct. 1, 2018 and Dec. 31, 2018, and surveyed 416,853 registered voters across the country, based by state. The margin of error varied by senator, but did not exceed 5 percentage points.