A week after leading the charge of polls showing the GOP with a huge lead in generic congressional ballot polls, Gallup is out with new numbers today that dump a bucket of cold water on that very idea.
According to the latest Gallup survey of registered voters, Republicans and Democrats are tied on the congressional ballot question with each drawing 46% of the vote. Last week’s poll showed the GOP ahead by 10, leading 51-41.
Not surprisingly, Republicans flooded reporters’ inboxes with the results of last week’s Gallup poll. Same story for coverage of today’s big national polls from ABC News/Washington Post and NBC News/Wall Street Journal, both of which showed Republicans with big leads among likely voters. Tonight, it’s the Democrats’ turn to hit the “fwd” button, blanketing the fourth estate with links to the Gallup poll ostensibly bursting the “Democratic strategy = rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic” narrative.
How long will the euphoria last for Democrats?
Guess it depends on what the next poll says. The TPM Poll Average shows Republicans leading the generic ballot question 49.1-41.7, meaning that in aggregate the signs are still very bad for Democrats.
Especially when you consider that the worst news for Democrats in the polls concerns voter enthusiasm, or the likelihood that a given party’s base will actually show up to the polls in November. Republicans have dominated that race for months, with Democrats lagging while supporters of a potential GOP-run Congress seemingly get more and more fired up. Today’s Gallup poll, though something of a mini-narrative buster on the generic ballot front, confirms that Democrats are still in a heap of trouble when it comes to voter enthusiasm.
“There has been no change in the advantage Republicans hold over Democrats on motivation to vote in the fall elections,” the venerated pollster reported today. “Republicans remain twice as likely as Democrats to be ‘very enthusiastic’ about voting, tied with the previous week’s measure as the largest such advantage of the year.”
