What They Told Us: Reviewing Last Week’s Key Polls - Week Ending July 29, 2017

So much for one-party rule. President Trump ended the week with his job approval rating down to a new low of 41%, while GOP Senator John McCain late Thursday killed the Republican effort to change Obamacare and was hugged by a prominent Democratic senator in thanks.

GOP voters overwhelmingly support repealing and replacing the health care law, and Trump is echoing that call. The Republican-led Senate, however, has failed to deliver. Most Republicans once again say GOP members of Congress have lost touch with the party's voters. 

Voters are now more likely to believe Republicans in Congress are the bigger problem for Trump than Democrats are.

Earlier this year, 68% of Republicans said their party should be more like Trump than like McCain. Among Democrats, those numbers were reversed: 68% said the Republican Party should be more like McCain.

Over six months into the Trump presidency, Republican voters still say they relate more to the president’s political views than those of their party's representatives in Congress.

Just 15% of all voters give Congress positive marks for its job performance. Most have an unfavorable opinion of the top congressional leaders of both major parties. 

Fifty-five percent (55%) of voters say what the media thinks matters more to the average member of Congress than what voters think. Republicans and voters not affiliated with either major party believe this more strongly than Democrats do.

But then 76% of Republicans and 51% of unaffiliateds also think most reporters are biased against Trump, a view shared by only 24% of Democrats.

Most Republicans (68%) and unaffiliated voters (52%) believe the media holds too much power and influence over government decisions in general. Just 32% of Democrats agree.

Voters are evenly divided over Trump’s decision to prohibit from military service those who want to live openly as the opposite sex.  Republicans welcome the decision; Democrats don’t.

Just 23% of all voters think President Obama's decision to allow open transgenders to serve is good for the military.

Voters tend to believe the body politic is becoming more liberal on social issues but still leans conservative in fiscal areas.

The president last week called Attorney General Jeff Sessions “beleaguered” and said he would have picked someone else if he knew Sessions would recuse himself from the Russia investigation. Still, voters see Sessions more favorably than either of President Obama's attorneys general.

Congress wants to turn up the heat on Iran, North Korea and Russia with more economic sanctions, and voters tend to think that’s a good idea. 

The latest Rasmussen Minute asks, why is it that a large majority of everyday Americans consider most Hollywood celebrities to be bad role models and unpalatable candidates for public office?

Following actress Meryl Streep's Golden Globes speech criticizing Trump in January, most Americans said Hollywood celebrities are politically to the left of them.

In other surveys this week:

-- Thirty-three percent (33%) of voters say the country is headed in the right direction.

-- Most Americans say their health hasn't changed in recent years, but nearly half are paying more for health care.

-- Seventy-four percent (74%) have seen a doctor for a general physical exam in the last 12 months, and 46% of these adults say their doctor recommended lifestyle changes in the way they eat, drink or exercise.

-- Stand back, LeBron. Move over, Patriots. Americans by a better than two-to-one margin have their eye more on politics than on sports these days.

Visit the Rasmussen Reports home page for the latest current polling coverage of events in the news. The page is updated several times each day.

Remember, if it's in the news, it's in our polls.