Election 2012: Americans Would Vote Out Every Member of Congress

The majority of U.S. registered voters would vote out every single member of Congress if they could, according to an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Friday.

The results were almost identical across partisan and ideological lines, which is unusual nowadays: 55 percent of liberals, 55 percent of moderates and 58 percent of conservatives said they would vote for a hypothetical ballot measure to wipe Congress clean -- even their own senators and representatives. And the congressional approval rating remained historically low, with just 13 percent of respondents saying they approved of the job Congress was doing and 80 percent disapproving.

These numbers should make every incumbent up for re-election nervous, regardless of their party affiliation.

In one sense, Democrats have more to fear than Republicans do, because 23 Democratic senators are up for re-election this year, compared to 10 Republican senators. But in the House, Republicans will bear the brunt of public anger because they are the majority party. According to the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, 31 percent of registered voters think Republicans have brought the wrong kind of change to Washington, and only 12 percent say they have brought the right kind of change.