Pew Research Center’s newest study of survey data, titled Public Dissatisfaction with Washington Weighs on the GOP, contains one data point I never thought I’d see. Among Democratic voters, the disapproval rating for House Speaker Paul Ryan (75 percent) is substantially higher today than Newt Gingrich’s was in April 1995 (61 percent), a few months after Republicans took over Congress in the 1994 elections and Gingrich was elected speaker.
Ryan’s job approval rating among Republicans and GOP-leaners (51 percent) is also lower today than Gingrich’s was 22 years ago, but that could be partly due to something Gingrich didn’t have to contend with — a perception of friction between himself and a Republican president.
In early 1995, much of the media strove to paint Gingrich as an unhinged bomb-thrower with serious ethical baggage. No one seems to believe anything like that about Ryan, but perhaps his run for the vice presidency in 2012 raised his profile enough to earn him some extra Democratic hatred.
