Update: The most recent rankings are available here.
Sen. Bernie Sanders may have watched his final hopes of being the Democratic presidential nominee flame out Tuesday night, but when he eventually heads home he can return knowing the people of Vermont still love him. Even after months of battling with front-runner Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, Sanders remains the most popular senator in America.
Based on interviews with more than 62,000 registered voters since January, Morning Consult crunched how constituents felt about their home-state senators. Sanders maintained his spot at the top of the list from November, with an 80 percent approval rating.
Other presidential contenders saw mixed results from the campaign trail. Florida Republican Marco Rubio’s approval rating dropped 5 points from November, down to 45 percent. His disapproval ratings increased 8 points to 41 percent. Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who is still competing for the Republican nomination, saw his approval rating increase 3 points to 55 percent with Texans, while his disapproval numbers went down two points to 30 percent.
The least popular senator also hasn’t changed since we last released these results: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has the highest disapproval rating in the Senate, with 49 percent of Kentuckians saying they don’t have a favorable impression of him.
Click on each senators' name to get a closer look at the data in Morning Consult Intelligence, where you can see how opinion on each senator changed over time.
Morning Consult conducted this analysis using interviews with more than 62,000 registered voters from January 8, 2016 to April 17, 2016. On each poll, participants indicated whether they approved or disapproved of the job performance of President Barack Obama, their state governor, senators, representative and their mayor, if they lived in a city with more than about 10,000 residents.
For each question, they could answer strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, strongly disapprove, or don’t know / no opinion. Survey respondents were assigned their governor and senators based on their state of residence, their representative based on a combination of zip code, IP address, latitude and longitude, and their mayor based on their state and zip code.
The results include population parameters for registered voters from the November 2012 Current Population Survey (CPS). We applied post-stratification weights based on gender, age, educational attainment and race. The median state includes a total of 935 respondents, the state with the most respondents is California (n = 5,456) and the state with the least respondents is Wyoming (n = 157).
| State Name | Approve | Disapprove | Don’t Know/No Opinion | Margin of Error | Senator | Party |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alabama | 59% | 28% | 13% | 3% | Richard Shelby | Republican |
| Alabama | 54% | 25% | 21% | 3% | Jefferson Sessions | Republican |
| Alaska | 55% | 23% | 21% | 7% | Dan Sullivan | Republican |
| Alaska | 59% | 21% | 20% | 7% | Lisa Murkowski | Republican |
| Arizona | 42% | 35% | 23% | 3% | Jeff Flake | Republican |
| Arizona | 49% | 42% | 9% | 3% | John McCain | Republican |
| Arkansas | 50% | 32% | 18% | 4% | Tom Cotton | Republican |
| Arkansas | 47% | 25% | 28% | 4% | John Boozman | Republican |
| California | 51% | 32% | 16% | 1% | Barbara Boxer | Democrat |
| California | 52% | 32% | 16% | 1% | Dianne Feinstein | Democrat |
| Colorado | 51% | 27% | 22% | 3% | Cory Gardner | Republican |
| Colorado | 46% | 26% | 28% | 3% | Michael Bennet | Democrat |
| Connecticut | 59% | 27% | 14% | 4% | Richard Blumenthal | Democrat |
| Connecticut | 53% | 27% | 20% | 4% | Christopher Murphy | Democrat |
| Delaware | 69% | 20% | 11% | 6% | Thomas Carper | Democrat |
| Delaware | 63% | 24% | 13% | 6% | Chris Coons | Democrat |
| Florida | 52% | 24% | 24% | 2% | Bill Nelson | Democrat |
| Florida | 45% | 41% | 14% | 2% | Marco Rubio | Republican |
| Georgia | 50% | 23% | 27% | 2% | John Isakson | Republican |
| Georgia | 51% | 24% | 25% | 2% | David Perdue | Republican |
| Hawaii | 46% | 33% | 21% | 6% | Brian Schatz | Democrat |
| Hawaii | 52% | 28% | 21% | 6% | Mazie Hirono | Democrat |
| Idaho | 51% | 28% | 21% | 5% | Michael Crapo | Republican |
| Idaho | 47% | 26% | 27% | 5% | James Risch | Republican |
| Illinois | 43% | 36% | 21% | 2% | Richard Durbin | Democrat |
| Illinois | 39% | 33% | 29% | 2% | Mark Kirk | Republican |
| Indiana | 50% | 24% | 27% | 3% | Daniel Coats | Republican |
| Indiana | 48% | 24% | 28% | 3% | Joe Donnelly | Democrat |
| Iowa | 55% | 29% | 16% | 4% | Charles Grassley | Republican |
| Iowa | 47% | 32% | 21% | 4% | Joni Ernst | Republican |
| Kansas | 41% | 31% | 28% | 4% | Jerry Moran | Republican |
| Kansas | 40% | 42% | 19% | 4% | Pat Roberts | Republican |
| Kentucky | 40% | 49% | 11% | 3% | Mitch McConnell | Republican |
| Kentucky | 51% | 35% | 14% | 3% | Rand Paul | Republican |
| Louisiana | 40% | 31% | 29% | 4% | Bill Cassidy | Republican |
| Louisiana | 44% | 40% | 16% | 4% | David Vitter | Republican |
| Maine | 74% | 14% | 11% | 5% | Angus King | Independent |
| Maine | 79% | 13% | 8% | 5% | Susan Collins | Republican |
| Maryland | 54% | 18% | 28% | 3% | Benjamin Cardin | Democrat |
| Maryland | 60% | 21% | 18% | 3% | Barbara Mikulski | Democrat |
| Massachusetts | 61% | 27% | 12% | 3% | Elizabeth Warren | Democrat |
| Massachusetts | 51% | 19% | 30% | 3% | Edward Markey | Democrat |
| Michigan | 48% | 34% | 17% | 2% | Debbie Stabenow | Democrat |
| Michigan | 38% | 28% | 34% | 2% | Gary Peters | Democrat |
| Minnesota | 63% | 26% | 11% | 3% | Alan Franken | Democrat |
| Minnesota | 68% | 21% | 11% | 3% | Amy Klobuchar | Democrat |
| Mississippi | 53% | 28% | 19% | 4% | Thad Cochran | Republican |
| Mississippi | 46% | 25% | 29% | 4% | Roger Wicker | Republican |
| Missouri | 48% | 38% | 15% | 3% | Claire McCaskill | Democrat |
| Missouri | 49% | 29% | 22% | 3% | Roy Blunt | Republican |
| Montana | 48% | 40% | 12% | 6% | Jon Tester | Democrat |
| Montana | 59% | 23% | 18% | 6% | Steve Daines | Republican |
| Nebraska | 53% | 30% | 17% | 5% | Deb Fischer | Republican |
| Nebraska | 50% | 28% | 22% | 5% | Benjamin Sasse | Republican |
| Nevada | 45% | 41% | 14% | 4% | Harry Reid | Democrat |
| Nevada | 48% | 22% | 30% | 4% | Dean Heller | Republican |
| New Hampshire | 54% | 35% | 10% | 6% | Kelly Ayotte | Republican |
| New Hampshire | 58% | 33% | 9% | 6% | Jeanne Shaheen | Democrat |
| New Jersey | 42% | 32% | 26% | 2% | Robert Menendez | Democrat |
| New Jersey | 52% | 24% | 24% | 2% | Cory Booker | Democrat |
| New Mexico | 57% | 23% | 20% | 5% | Tom Udall | Democrat |
| New Mexico | 49% | 24% | 27% | 5% | Martin Heinrich | Democrat |
| New York | 62% | 23% | 15% | 2% | Charles Schumer | Democrat |
| New York | 56% | 20% | 24% | 2% | Kirsten Gillibrand | Democrat |
| North Carolina | 44% | 29% | 28% | 2% | Richard Burr | Republican |
| North Carolina | 41% | 32% | 27% | 2% | Thom Tillis | Republican |
| North Dakota | 50% | 35% | 15% | 6% | Heidi Heitkamp | Democrat |
| North Dakota | 74% | 10% | 16% | 6% | John Hoeven | Republican |
| Ohio | 50% | 27% | 23% | 2% | Sherrod Brown | Democrat |
| Ohio | 44% | 24% | 32% | 2% | Robert Portman | Republican |
| Oklahoma | 47% | 26% | 28% | 4% | James Lankford | Republican |
| Oklahoma | 49% | 29% | 22% | 4% | James Inhofe | Republican |
| Oregon | 52% | 23% | 25% | 3% | Jeff Merkley | Democrat |
| Oregon | 58% | 21% | 21% | 3% | Ron Wyden | Democrat |
| Pennsylvania | 46% | 28% | 27% | 2% | Patrick Toomey | Republican |
| Pennsylvania | 47% | 27% | 26% | 2% | Robert Casey | Democrat |
| Rhode Island | 52% | 33% | 15% | 6% | Sheldon Whitehouse | Democrat |
| Rhode Island | 59% | 25% | 16% | 6% | John Reed | Democrat |
| South Carolina | 48% | 33% | 19% | 3% | Lindsey Graham | Republican |
| South Carolina | 50% | 18% | 31% | 3% | Tim Scott | Republican |
| South Dakota | 62% | 26% | 13% | 7% | John Thune | Republican |
| South Dakota | 51% | 29% | 20% | 7% | Mike Rounds | Republican |
| Tennessee | 53% | 29% | 18% | 3% | Lamar Alexander | Republican |
| Tennessee | 50% | 29% | 21% | 3% | Bob Corker | Republican |
| Texas | 55% | 30% | 14% | 2% | Ted Cruz | Republican |
| Texas | 45% | 23% | 33% | 2% | John Cornyn | Republican |
| Utah | 49% | 41% | 10% | 4% | Orrin Hatch | Republican |
| Utah | 48% | 29% | 23% | 4% | Mike Lee | Republican |
| Vermont | 80% | 17% | 2% | 7% | Bernard Sanders | Independent |
| Vermont | 73% | 19% | 8% | 7% | Patrick Leahy | Democrat |
| Virginia | 62% | 21% | 16% | 2% | Mark Warner | Democrat |
| Virginia | 53% | 24% | 23% | 2% | Timothy Kaine | Democrat |
| Washington | 57% | 27% | 16% | 3% | Patty Murray | Democrat |
| Washington | 55% | 24% | 21% | 3% | Maria Cantwell | Democrat |
| West Virginia | 57% | 25% | 18% | 4% | Shelley Capito | Republican |
| West Virginia | 57% | 30% | 13% | 4% | Joe Manchin | Democrat |
| Wisconsin | 43% | 32% | 25% | 3% | Ron Johnson | Republican |
| Wisconsin | 43% | 37% | 21% | 3% | Tammy Baldwin | Democrat |
| Wyoming | 65% | 27% | 8% | 8% | John Barrasso | Republican |
| Wyoming | 58% | 21% | 21% | 8% | Michael Enzi | Republican |
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