Democratic donors seem excited by the new House majority

The 2020 Democratic presidential primary campaigns have garnered a lot of public attention already. But apparently many Democratic voters have kept their attention on Congress in the hopes of maintaining their party's new majority, which came into effect in January.

The House Democrats' campaign arm announced on Wednesday that it raised $11.6 million in February, more than in any previous February in history, The Hill reports, and more than $4 million more than in January. Grassroots donations accounted for $4.6 million of the total.

"The fact that we just had our strongest February in the history of the DCCC show that our momentum is really growing," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chair Cheri Bustos said in a statement.

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The increase in donations may also be reflected in a Gallup poll published on Tuesday, which shows that the congressional approval rating has hit a two-year high. The number itself is not a pretty sight — according to the poll, just 26 percent of Americans' approve of the job Congress is doing. But considering that congressional approval has averaged only 30 percent since 1974, it's not out of the realm of respectability. Unsurprisingly, with the new majority in tow, Democrats are more likely to approve of Congress, registering a 31 percent favorable rating compared to just 18 percent of Republicans.

Gallup conducted its poll between March 1 and March 10 via telephone interviews with a random sample of 1,039 U.S. adults. The margin of error is 5 percentage points.