Americans don’t know, or care, which party controls House, Senate

A new Gallup poll sheds light on how little some are invested in the U.S. political system.

The poll shows a little more than a third of Americans know which parties control the House and Senate, and only 40 percent say it truly matters.

Far fewer Republicans care about who is in control now than in 2010, when 61 percent did.

Here’s a closer look at the historical trend:

Those same Americans who don’t necessarily care about which party is in control also have trouble identifying who controls the House and Senate.

Thirty-six percent of Americans could correctly identify that the GOP controls the House and Democrats control the Senate. Of those surveyed, 14 percent were wrong on both.

From Gallup:

“Americans who are knowledgeable about who controls each house of Congress are significantly more likely than others to say party control of Congress matters greatly to them: 55 percent of the well-informed group say this, versus about a third or less of those who can’t properly identify party control. This highlights the divide in midterm politics between the politically concerned and informed subset of Americans — a proportion similar to the typical midterm turnout rate, near 40 percent — and the rest of the population that is less engaged politically.”