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At this point in a presidential election year, Americans are inundated with polls. Often these polls provide no real information at all, except the bias and the population samples of the polling organization. As one example, consider this polling data released for April 16 showing the matchup between Obama and Romney. Depending upon the polling organization, Romney leads Obama by 2 (Gallup), trails Obama by 9 (CNN/Opinion Research), trails Obama by 4 (Reuters/Ipsos), or leads Obama by 3 (Rasmussen). Presidential match-up polls are notoriously unpredictable six months before an election. Will the recent scandal involving Secret Service agents and prostitutes...

RCP Avg. Generic Congressional Vote: Republicans +9.4% (Prior record was +8.7% on Nov 1.)

In October, Gallup is reporting three estimates of voter preferences for the midterm congressional elections, adding two turnout scenarios among likely voters to the registered voter preferences it has been publishing since March. Explore these measures alongside other key indicators relevant to the 2010 vote. Model GOP Dem Registered Voters 48 44 High Turnout 52 43 Low Turnout 55 41

With Election Day eight days away, Republican candidates hold a nine-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, October 24, 2010. It's the second week in a row the gap between the parties has been that wide. Forty-nine percent (49%) of respondents say they would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, while 40% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Even more worrisome for Democrats, however, is the finding that among the voters who are most closely following the midterm elections Republicans hold a 56% to 38% lead. 

PRINCETON, NJ -- Gallup's tracking of the generic ballot for Congress finds Republicans leading Democrats by 5 percentage points among registered voters, 48% to 43%, and by 11- and 17-point margins among likely voters, depending on turnout. This is the third consecutive week the Republicans have led on the measure among registered voters, after two weeks in September when the parties were about tied.

Election Day is just two weeks away, and Republican candidates hold a nine-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, October 17, 2010. Forty-eight percent (48%) of respondents say they would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, while 39% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Even more worrisome for Democrats, however, is the finding that among the voters who are most closely following the midterm elections Republicans hold a 55% to 36% lead.  While the margin has varied somewhat from week-to-week, Republicans have been consistently ahead on the Generic Ballot for...

With just three weeks to go until Election Day, Republicans hold an eight-point lead on the Generic Congressional Ballot. Polling for the week ending Sunday, October 10, shows that 47% of Likely Voters would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, while 39% prefer the Democrat. The Republican advantage comes from a number of factors. One is the fact that midterm elections typically feature an older electorate with a smaller share of minority voters. Additionally, in 2010, there is clearly an enthusiasm gap favoring the GOP. Due to these and other factors, the data projects that 35% of voters this...

What do you make of a poll that has Republicans losing on the generic ballot by 5 points among registered voters, and by 8 points among “definite” voters, even though the GOP leads among independent voters by 47-30 percent?I am referring, of course, to the new Newsweek poll that’s been released. How do you suppose Republicans can be losing so badly if they’re winning independents by a ratio better than three-to-two? Here’s how: If you look at how each party does by the voters’ partisan ID, and do the three-by-three equation (handy tool for that here), (0.93)r+ (.02)d + (0.47)i...

  The Gallup Poll’s final likely voter poll has proven to be a highly accurate predictor of the results of midterm elections for the House of Representatives. In 13 midterm elections between 1950 and 2006 for which Gallup estimated the preferences of likely voters, the correlation between the Republican margin among likely voters in the final pre-election poll and the actual Republican margin in the national popular vote is an impressive .94. Moreover, the average difference between the predicted Republican vote margin and the actual Republican vote margin in these 13 elections is only 2 percentage points. Given the accuracy...

Nate Silver, founder of the election-prognostication website fivethirtyeight.com and now a New York Times blogger, posted this analysis today, in which he argues that the GOP’s advantage in the generic polls might overstate the number seats they will gain in the House. Many district polls show Democratic incumbents running ahead of the generic margin, and Nate hypothesizes that this may show that the Democrats’ strategy of trying to localize races in each House district might be working, and hence the GOP could win fewer seats than might otherwise be expected. Nate knows more about regression analysis than I do, but...

Republican candidates now hold a 10-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, September 19, 2010. Forty-eight percent (48%) of respondents say they would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate, while 38% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Still, while the margin has varied somewhat from week-to-week, Republicans have been consistently ahead in the Generic Ballot for over a year. During 2010, the GOP edge has never fallen below five points and has run as high as 12 points. When Barack Obama first took office as president of the United States,...

Generic Congressional Ballot, RCP Averages: Repubicans: 49.1, Democrats: 41.0, Spread: Republicans +8.1

The Real Clear Politics Congressional Generic Ballot poll average shows Republicans enjoy the highest vote % and biggest lead/spread lead ever recorded.

    A couple of weeks ago, we examined the potential upside case for Democrats in November's midterms. If the party were able to limit their losses to about 20 House seats and 3-4 Senate seats, it might not have as deleterious an effect on their policy agenda as you might think. But that is the upside case for Democrats. It is not the base case, and it is certainly not the worst case -- both of which look as grim as ever. Although I think people may somewhat underestimate the probability of a shift in momentum back toward the...

Republicans now hold a six-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% of Likely Voters would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate, while 39% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. The survey data was collected on the seven days ending Sunday, August 29, 2010.   The Republicans have been consistently ahead in the Generic Ballot every week for over a year, but this is the smallest advantage the party has held since mid-July.. The GOP edge hasn’t fallen below five points since the beginning of December...

August 23, 2010Republicans now hold a nine-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, August 22, 2010. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 47% of Likely Voters would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate, while 38% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. The previous week, Republicans held a 12-point lead, the biggest they've had in over a decade of Rasmussen Reports surveying. But support for Republicans is down one point from then, while support for Democrats is up two points. Republicans have led on the Generic Congressional Ballot...

Republican candidates have jumped out to a record-setting 12-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, August 15, 2010. This is the biggest lead the GOP has held in over a decade of Rasmussen Reports surveying.

Democratic spin doctors have set out how their side is going to hold on to a majority in the House. They'll capture four at-risk Republican seats, hold half of the next 30 or so Democratic at-risk seats, and avoid significant losses on target seats lower on the list. That's one plausible scenario. The shift of opinion away from Democrats, so evident in the polls, could turn out to be illusory. The widely held assumption that Republicans will turn out in greater numbers than Democrats could prove wrong. Democratic candidates do indeed have a money advantage in many close races, and...

Republican candidates now hold a 10-point lead over Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot, tying the GOP's high for the year recorded the second week in March and their biggest lead in nearly three years of weekly tracking. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% of likely U.S. voters would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate, while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. This comes even as separate polling shows 74% of voters correctly identify Republicans as the political party Democrats have labeled the Party of No for their...

I can't put my finger on any single event that may be the cause, but in three days, Obama's approval ratings on Rasmussen's daily tracking poll have gone from 50-49, to 45-54. Among those who feel strongly either way, there has been a drop from 32-40, to 27-44. Forty-four percent ties the peak Obama has ever hit for strongly disapprove. In general, Rasmussen numbers have been more volatile since health care reform was approved.There are days in which Obama's approval numbers are much higher than the average for the prior few months, and other periods when his numbers sink to...

The Democrats’ extremely short health care honeymoon appears to be over. Late last week, just days after the endlessly talked about bill was passed, just-released poll numbers that suggested the country had done and about-face on health care (and Obama) had the Democrats crowing. Suddenly the November elections did not look so glum. Well that was last week. This week, according to Gallup, voters are apparently back to preferring the GOP candidate. "Registered voters now say they prefer the Republican to the Democratic candidate in their district by 47% to 44% in the midterm congressional elections, the first time the...

There’s lot of bad news for the Democrats in the survey just released by Democracy Corps and Third Way, conducted by Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg’s firm. The numbers I’ll quote here are the results for likely voters and don’t include “dropoff voters,” who tend to be younger and significantly more Democratic. Republicans lead on the generic poll for the House by 47%-44% and even lead in party identification, including leaners, by 47%-46%. This is in line with the Real Clear Politics average on the generic vote which shows Republicans ahead 44%-43%; if you drop the AP/Ipsos poll, an outlier which...

For the second straight week, Republican candidates led Democrats by nine points in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot. ............................... Republicans started the year ahead by nine points -- their largest lead in several years -- while support for for Democrats fell to its lowest level over the same period. ............................... The latest numbers continue to highlight a remarkable change in the political environment over the past year....

The Real Clear Politics average on the generic ballot now shows Republicans ahead 46%-42%. This is historically unprecedented. Except for a single CNN/USA Today poll conducted right after the Republican National Convention, September 5-7, 2008, which seems to have been an outlier, Republicans didn’t take the lead on the generic ballot—which party’s candidate will you vote for in House races—until March 9-15, 2009, in Rasmussen polling (which samples likely voters and whose results have therefore leaned more Republican than those of other pollsters since Barack Obama’s inauguration). Republicans since took a lead in the NPR poll (July 22-26), Gallup (November...

If Congressional elections were held today, Democratic Candidates would receive the bulk of votes from democrats, overwhelmingly lose support from Republicans and independents. According to the latest Rasmussen Generic Ballot Poll, the republican vote inched up to the point where Republicans again hold a nine-point lead over Democrats. The caveat in this is that it is generic, and doesn't take into account the individual candidates, or the make-up of the congressional districts. The poll shows that 46% of voters would select the Republican congressional candidate and 37% would select the Democrat. This represents a 16% swing for the GOP since...

Republican candidates have now posted a nine-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the first two weeks of 2010. The latest national telephone survey shows that 45% now would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Last week, Republicans started the New Year with a nine-point lead, their biggest in several years, while support for Democrats fell to its lowest level in years. Republicans have held the lead on the ballot for over four months now. The number of Americans identifying themselves as Democrats is down to...

The March of bad news for the Democratic party continuances. On Sunday Rasmussen reported the number of people identifying themselves as Democrats was at a seven year low and that drop has happened every since Barack Obama was elected. Currently, 35.5% of American adults still admit that they are Democrats. It is still 1.5% more than the GOP but last December the number was. That’s down from 36.0 a month ago and from 37.8% in October. Last December the numbers were 41.6% for the Democrats and 32.8% for the GOP an 8.8% difference. Growing faster than the republicans are the...

Who says that President Obama hasn't achieved anything in the past year. Just before he took office in January, the President's Democratic party had a six point 42%-36% lead in Rasmussen's Generic Congressional Ballot, today Rasmussen has the GOP with an 8 point 44%-36% lead, a trend which, if it continues spells bad news for the President's party a little more than ten months from now. Most impressive is that amongst the key group of political independents the GOP has a 24 point 43% to 19% margin.

Now we can honestly say that President Obama has achieved something worthwhile. Tonight Rasmussen has released its weekly look at party strength via the Generic Congressional Ballot. When the President took office in January of this year the Democratic Party had a seven point lead, but after ten months of an Obama Presidency the GOP has taken a 7 percentage point lead. The report shows that if elections were held today, 44% of likely voters would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 37% would select the Democratic opponent.

The victories by Republicans in two Governors races last Tuesday appear to have lifted the party's prospects in 2010 and in 2012 in the minds of voters with 58% of those surveyed by Rasmussen now believe the next President will be Republican Both Gallup and Rasmussen now show solid leads for the GOP in the generic Congressional ballot for 2010 - 4% in Gallup and 6% in Rasmussen. For Gallup, this is a 6% shift in one month, and a 10% shift in two months away from the Democrats. Nate Silver show more Democratic held Senate seats at risk in...

Republican congressional candidates have once again expanded their lead over Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot.

Little has changed this week on the Generic Ballot as Republican Congressional candidates continue to hold a seven-point lead over Democrats. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 37% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Support for both parties rose one point over the past week, giving Republicans their highest level of support of the past several years. Support for Democrats last week reached its lowest point during that same time period. This summer, support for Republican candidates ranged from 41% to 43%, support for Democrats...

Thus, at this early stage, 2010 does not look like it is shaping up to be as strong a Democratic year as 2006 was, and that could make it difficult for the party to hold onto the gains it made in the 2006 midterm and 2008 presidential elections.

Generic Congressional Ballot Republicans Take Four-Point Lead on Generic Ballot Tuesday, July 21 Support for Republican congressional candidates has reached its highest level in over two years as the GOP lengthens its lead over Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Ballot. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 42% would vote for their district’s Republican congressional candidate while 38% would opt for the

Democratic and Republican candidates are now tied in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 40% would vote for their district’s Democratic congressional candidate while 40% would choose the Republican. Support for Democrats is up two points from last week, while support for the GOP is up three points. Support for the GOP is just one point below its highest level found over the past year. Last week’s results for the Democrats tied the lowest level of support for the party during the same period. Voters not affiliated with either...

Republicans have pulled within one point of Democrats in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 40% would vote for their district’s Democratic candidate while 39% would choose the Republican. Support for Democratic congressional candidates fell two points this week, while support for GOP candidates gained one point to tie its highest level this year so far. Three weeks ago, Republicans took a two-point lead over Democrats, their first in several years, but that quickly reversed the following week. Democrats began the year holding a six- or seven-point lead over...

Democrats have pulled slightly further ahead this week in the latest edition of the Generic Congressional Ballot. Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveys found that 41% of voters said they would vote for their district’s Democratic candidate while 37% said they would choose the Republican. While support for the Democrats has not changed since last week, support for the GOP dropped two points since the last release. Over the past year, Democratic support has ranged from a low of 40% to a high of 50%. In that same time period, Republicans have been preferred by 34% to 41% of voters nationwide....

Following the unanimous Republican opposition to the economic stimulus bill proposed by and House Democrats, the GOP has narrowed the gap this week on the Generic Congressional Ballot. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone surveys found that the Democrats’ lead is down to four percentage points--42% of voters said they would vote for their district’s Democratic candidate while 38% said they would choose the Republican (see crosstabs). A week ago, the Democrats enjoyed a seven-point lead. While support for the Democrats is unchanged since last week, support for the GOP is up three percentage points. The 38% who say they’d...

  The gap between Republicans and Democrats in the Generic Congressional Ballot has tightened for the fifth straight week. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that, if given the choice, 45% of voters would choose their district’s Democratic candidate, while 36% would choose the Republican candidate. Support for the Democrats is down a point from last week and two points from the week before. The party’s nine point lead is the smallest for the Democrats since May. From now through Election Day, Rasmussen Reports is tracking the Generic Congressional Ballot on a weekly basis. Crosstabs are available for...

Thomas Riehle and Lance Tarrance offered a thought-provoking piece last week discussing the generic congressional ballot, i.e. the question in media polls that asks which party respondents will prefer in the congressional election.They write: The new Cook Political Report/RT Strategies national survey...shows Democrats leading Republicans by 12 points among registered voters...the Democratic advantage in these generic ballot tests is into double digits, beyond the reach of the normal overstatement of Democratic prospects that critics correctly cite as an historic fact when looking at either the partisan Congressional control question or the generic ballot test. It is true that critics (such...