More Than 30 Million Americans Don't Know Who Mike Pence Is

More than 12% of Americans have “never heard of” Vice President Mike Pence, according to a new CNN poll.

The figure amounts to 30,387,311 fully grown adults. This shockingly huge number is, even more surprisingly, nothing new, as CNN notes. The portion of people who have said they don’t know the name Pence has hovered around 10% since he first entered office.

A record-low 5% of people who responded to the survey say they don’t recognize Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.); who saw her numbers sink as low as Pence’s this past May. A higher portion of people don’t know who Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is after a noticeable absence from the government shutdown debates.

And with another potential shutdown looming on the calendar next week, Feb. 15, many Americans are feeling doubtful that their two major parties will be able to come to an agreement. About two-thirds, at 64%, say an agreement is unlikely to happen before the deadline — a sentiment felt on both sides of the aisle with 65% of Democrats and 57% of Republicans in agreement.

Almost 7 in 10 say the federal government is doing a bad job of governing, including 43% who say it’s the worst job of governing in their lifetimes. That’s about double the share who said the same in early 1996 (21%) following a government shutdown that was the longest on record until last month. Just 19% say the federal government is doing a good job, according to CNN.