By Mark Drajem
Bloomberg News

Americans’ support for Congress has dropped to 16 percent, statistically matching the lowest level in 17 years, and optimism about the outlook for the U.S. war in Iraq has dropped to just 20 percent, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News Poll.

The poll of 1,006 registered voters showed that three-quarters of Americans disapprove of the job Congress is doing, an increase of 10 percentage points from last month.

By a record margin of 52 percent to 37 percent voters also say they want Democrats to take control of Congress in the Nov. 7 election. It’s the first time this year in this poll that one party was favored by more than half the voters, and it compared with a gap in support between the two parties of 9 percentage points last month.

A month before the 1994 election that brought Republicans to power, that party was favored by 6 percentage points, 44 percent to 38 percent, the Wall Street Journal and NBC reported.

President George W. Bush and Republicans have lost ground to Democrats because of scandals and the war in Iraq, the poll said. The poll was taken Oct. 13 to 16 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The poll found that those who support the job Bush is doing fell to 38 percent from 39 percent two weeks ago and 42 percent last month. Bush was hurt as support for the war in Iraq dropped. In June, 45 percent of registered voters said they were more optimistic about events in Iraq. That number fell to 20 percent in this poll. Those less optimistic rose to 68 percent.