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Tuesday, Jan 8, 2013 8:04 PM UTC

Poll: Congress less popular than cockroaches, Nickelback

A PPP poll finds that Americans prefer root canals and traffic jams to Congress

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Topics: Congress, Polling, Nickelback, U.S. House of Representatives, U.S. Senate,

Poll: Congress less popular than cockroaches, Nickelback (Credit: AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Public Policy Polling had a little bit of fun with its latest survey of how Americans view Congress, and found that Congress is less popular than a number of things that are terrible. “We decided to take a different approach and test Congress’ popularity against 26 different things. And what we found is that Congress is less popular than cockroaches, traffic jams, and even Nickelback,” Tom Jensen of PPP writes.

The poll finds that Congress has a 9 percent favorability rating, with 85 percent of voters having a negative view of it. Among the things more popular than Congress: lice, Brussels sprouts, NFL replacement refs, colonoscopies, root canals, traffic jams, cockroaches, carnies and more:

It may be true that everyone hates Nickelback, but apparently everyone hates Congress even more: Nickelback 39 Congress 32

Genghis Khan did a lot of bad stuff but I guess it’s faded from voters’ minds in a way that Congress’ recent misdeeds haven’t: Genghis Khan 41 Congress 37

DC political pundits and Donald Trump aren’t held in very high esteem by the population, but they still both manage to just barely edge Congress: DC political pundits 37 Congress 34 and Donald Trump 44 Congress 42

And then there are those things that are less popular than Congress:

Lindsey Lohan (45/41), playground bullies (43/38), and telemarketers (45/35). And it posts wider margins over the Kardashians (49/36), John Edwards (45/29), lobbyists (48/30), Fidel Castro (54/32), Gonorrhea (53/28), Ebola (53/25), Communism (57/23), North Korea (61/26), and meth labs (60/21).

Jillian Rayfield is an Assistant News Editor for Salon, focusing on politics. Follow her on Twitter at @jillrayfield or email her at jrayfield@salon.com. More Jillian Rayfield.

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