Gallup has tracked congressional approval for 34 years, and a national poll released today shows a record-tying low approval rating and close to a record disapproval score. In fact, the 18 percent approval rating for Congress is more than ten percentage points lower than President Bush’s current approval rating of 29 percent (which is only one point higher than his all-time low from April and early May of this year).

Democratic-voter approval had been as high as 44 percent at the start of the Democratically controlled Congress last January and is now down to 16 percent, nearly one-third of that score. Republicans did not lag behind the Democrats too much in approving the new Congress for most of the first year of the 110th, and now give a 20 percent congressional approval rating.

The partisan divide is much more noticable in the presidential support ratings. While a 66 percent presidential approval rating by Republicans is lower than it had been in previous years, it is substantially higher than his score among Democrats — only 7 percent of Democrats approve of the president’s current performance.

The poll is based on interviews with 1,017 adults conducted May 8-11, and the margin of error is ‘3 percentage points.