The polls are in — and the Republican Party looks like a total mess

Two weeks into Joe Biden's presidency, Republicans are lamenting the fact that Democrats now control the White House and both branches of Congress — and the latest Pollapalooza released by FiveThirtyEight won't give them any reason for optimism. Pollapalooza, a weekly polling roundup, finds that eight well-known Republicans in Congress have poor favorability ratings.

FiveThirtyEight came up with a polling average for the eight Republicans by combining the results of new Morning Consult/Politico, YouGov/The Economist and SurveyMonkey/Axios polls. And the Republicans are broken down into three groups: "controversial freshmen" (Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Rep. Madison Cawthorn of North Carolina), "better-known Trump allies" (Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy) and "Republicans who have broken with Trump" (Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming).

The "controversial freshmen" had some of the lowest favorability ratings, including 15% for Greene, 12% for Boebert and 11% for Cawthorn. But the "Republicans who have broken with Trump" don't fare much better. McConnell's favorability, according to FiveThirtyEight, is 19%, while Cheney's is 27%. And the favorability among the "better-known Trump allies" includes 19% for Hawley, 34% for Cruz and 23% for McCarthy.

This week, the House voted to take away Greene's committee assignments because of all the controversy that has surrounded the Georgia congresswoman — from promoting violence against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and other prominent Democrats to anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim Facebook posts. Fox Business' Lou Dobbs and other far-right pundits have been claiming that Greene is a victim of "cancel culture," but FiveThirtyEight's Pollapalooza shows that House Democrats are by no means the only ones who have a low opinion of her.

"Unsurprisingly, Greene is quite unpopular with the general public," FiveThirtyEight's Nathaniel Rakich explains. "According to an average of the three polls, she has a 15% favorable rating and a 37% unfavorable rating. This is due largely to opposition among Democrats, who view her unfavorably by an average margin of 56% to 8%. But even in the GOP, she is divisive. On average, 24% of Republicans view her positively and 20% view her negatively."

Cheney doesn't fare well among Republicans in FiveThirtyEight's Pollapalooza.

According to Rakich, "In an average of our three polls, 27% of Americans view her favorably, and 31% view her unfavorably. But fresh off her vote to impeach Trump for inciting the Capitol attack, she is widely disliked within her own party: 44% have an unfavorable opinion of her, while just 16% have a favorable one."

Meanwhile, according to FiveThirtyEight, President Biden is more popular than any of the eight Republicans in Congress. Rakich notes, "According to FiveThirtyEight's presidential approval tracker, 53.3% of Americans approve of the job Biden is doing as president, while 35.6% disapprove."