The Hill News

Congress is enjoying a slight rebound in its approval rating, a week after new lawmakers were sworn in.

Twenty percent of Americans said they approve of the way Congress is handling its job, up from the 13 percent approval rating lawmakers suffered from in mid-December, according to a Gallup Poll released Tuesday.

Disapproval of Congress went down as well â€" 73 percent of U.S. adults said they disapproved of Congress's work, down from a peak of 83 percent in the same mid-December Gallup poll.

An uptick in support from Republicans â€" from 7 to 22 pe! rcent â€" helped fuel the spike in congressional approval. Democrats' approval improved from 16 percent to 24 percent, though Gallup noted their approval for Congress is at a lower point than what it was for most of 2010.

The poll was conducted from Jan. 7-9, covering the period during which Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.) was shot. Still, Gallup's writeup asserted "there is no evidence in the day-by-day results that the Saturday shootings had any effect on attitudes about Congress as a whole."

The poll has a 4 percent margin of error.