The Republican party has a smaller advantage going into the 2014 elections than it did at this point in the 2010 cycle before winning the House majority.
A NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found that likely voters prefer a Republican-controlled Congress by a 2-point margin. In mid-October 2010, that was 7 points. (The margin of error is plus or minus 3.8 percentage points.)
“I think it’s going to be a very good Republican year,” Bill McInturff, a GOP pollster who helped conduct the survey, told NBC. “But plus-two [points] is very different than plus-seven.”
There are several factors working more strongly in the GOP’s favor. President Barack Obama’s approval rating is underwater, with 42 percent approving and 52 percent disapproving of the job he’s doing as president.
Among registered voters, 43 percent said their vote would not be a signal about Obama. Among the rest, 24 percent said their vote would be about expressing support for him while 32 said it would be about expressing opposition to him.
The Democratic party still has a stronger image: its approval rating is underwater by 6 points, while the Republican party’s approval rating is underwater by 23 percentage points.
The poll was conducted from Oct. 8-12. The margin of error among registered voters, as opposed to likely voters, is 3.1 percentage points.
