CNN poll: a plague on incumbents

Just when you thought Congress couldn't reach a new low, it did.

Only a third of US voters think their Congress members have earned the right to get sent back next year -- a record-low number, a poll released yesterday shows.

Thirty-four percent of voters queried think members of the House and the Senate ought to be re-elected -- while an astonishing 63 percent were in favor of throwing the bums out, the new CNN poll showed.

That's the worst performance for Congress in the history of the network's polling -- the latest red flag for the floundering Democratic leadership as it heads into an anti-incumbent voter wave just eight months before the midterm elections.

"This is not a good year to be an incumbent, regardless of which party you belong to," CNN polling director Keating Holland said.

"Voters seem equally angry at both Republicans and Democrats this year."

And the electorate is unsettled all around. Forty-five percent of the voters say they will back a Democrat in their congressional district, and 47 percent say they will go for the Republican -- whoever that may be in either case.