New Congress Is More Trusted Than President By Charles Babington and Jon Cohen, Washington Post Staff Writers

Asked whether they trusted Bush or Democrats in Congress “to do a better job coping with the main problems the nation faces,” 57 percent of the respondents said congressional Democrats and 31 percent said Bush. When the question was broken down to specific problems, such as Iraq, the economy, immigration and the “war on terrorism,” Democrats held clear majorities over Bush. Their lead was overwhelming in the area of health care: 64 percent to Bush’s 26 percent.

More than half of the respondents said it was a good thing that Congress will switch from Republican control to Democratic; 17 percent called it a bad thing and 1 in 4 said it would make no difference. Shortly after Republicans took over Congress after the 1994 election, 48 percent of Americans said the switch was a good thing.

In the poll, more than 4 in 5 Democrats said the latest change in control of Congress is good, as did 55 percent of independents. Even 23 percent of Republicans called the change a good thing. …

Two-thirds of those polled said Bush “should work mainly to compromise with the Democrats” in Congress rather than pursue his own agenda. …

The public gave relatively low marks to the Republican-controlled Congress that ended last week, with 37 percent saying they approved of how Congress was doing its job and 57 percent disapproving. The Washington Post-ABC News poll was conducted Dec. 7-11 by telephone among a random national sample of 1,005 adults. The margin of sampling error is three percentage points.