According to a slew of recent polls, the economy and inflation are the key topics three weeks out from the midterm congressional elections, posing a threat to Democrats’ chances of keeping control of Congress.
The general political climate of the country, which had been somewhat more favourable for Democrats following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, may be tilting more in favour of Republicans as a result of widespread perceptions of the economy as bad and getting worse, combined with dissatisfaction with President Joe Biden and the way things are going in the country.
According to a CBS News/YouGov poll issued on Sunday, 68% of Americans believe the Biden administration should be doing more to fight inflation while 65% believe the economy is becoming worse. According to a poll conducted by the New York Times and Siena College and released on Monday, 64% of likely voters believe that the United States is moving in the wrong direction. Only the economy (26%) and inflation (18%) were cited by double-digit percentages of likely voters as the two most pressing issues facing the nation at the time. According to a new AP-NORC poll released on Monday, 70% of registered voters nationwide express dissatisfaction with how things are currently going in the US, with majorities across party lines.
According to the Times/Siena poll, likely voters back Republican congressional nominees 49% to 45%, a ratio that is within the poll’s margin of sampling error. Within the margin of error, the probable voter preference split in the CBS/YouGov poll is 45% for the Democrats and 47% for the Republicans.
Both Democratic and Republican nominees had 46% support from voters, according to the most recent AWN Poll of Polls average. This is in contrast to the average’s tiny, 3-point tilt toward the Democrats as recently as late September.
Results from three of the five surveys that make up the average are being reported for likely voters. A fourth study, from Fox News, found that among registered voters, Democrats outnumbered Republicans 41% to 44%. However, among those who say they are certain they would vote in fall, the difference is 47% Republican to 46% Democratic.
Generic ballot preferences that are closely divided frequently predict Republican victory in the House. Generally speaking, support for partisan candidates among voters does not always result in an exact match in the number of House members. Redistricting has played a role in certain recent elections where Republicans have gained more seats than they did in the national popular vote.
According to recent polls, the focus on the economy has slowed the Democratic momentum that had been building since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization ruling by the Supreme Court, which abolished federal safeguards for abortion rights. According to a recent AWN poll, 72% of registered voters said abortion was crucial to their vote, compared to 90% who said the economy was. By a margin of 53% to 38%, registered voters in districts where the economy is extremely important to them tend to vote Republican.
In the tight congressional districts that will eventually determine who controls the House, the same survey revealed that 48% of potential voters supported the Republican nominee while 43% of this group supported the Democrat. Registered voters in such districts were more likely to consider economic considerations to be extremely significant in their voting decision than registered voters worldwide, and these voters skewed even more drastically in favour of the Republican nominee (56% to 30%).
The momentum in the campaign for the House has altered throughout the course of this year, going from a clear GOP lead to a situation where Democrats seemed more competitive, and it now seems to be moving back toward the Republicans. The current polling average indicates that Republicans are doing worse than polls before the Dobbs ruling would have indicated in the nationwide tight race. In early this year, reliable polls repeatedly showed that the GOP had a sizeable advantage over the Democrats on a general election question. Over the course of the summer, Democrats significantly closed that gap, culminating in a slim numerical advantage in the average and most polls on the generic ballot. However, at that time, just one survey that met AWN’s requirements for reporting revealed that Democrats had a sizable lead among voters. There is no obvious leader between the two parties in the contest for control of the House according to any of the surveys included in the current average.
The AWN Poll of Polls is a weighted average of the five most recent nonpartisan, nationwide polls of likely or registered voters that match AWN’s criteria for generic ballot choice within respondents’ home districts. The NPR/Marist survey from September 27–29, the AWN poll from September 3–5, the CBS News/YouGov poll from October 12–14, the Fox News poll from October 9–12, and the New York Times/Siena College poll from October 9–12 are all included in the poll of polls.
