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Six weeks out, midterm atmospherics trend in right direction for Democrats [1]
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Date: 2022-09-29
x Civiqs Results
Generic ballot
Civiqs’ generic ballot, which favored Republicans up until about March, has made slow, steady progress in the direction of Democrats since roughly late July/early August. In fact, 49% is the highest congressional Democrats have polled on the generic ballot question since Civiqs started tracking it in spring 2021. Civiqs' D+5 Democratic advantage (D 49% — R 44%) is higher than FiveThirtyEight's D+1.3 Democratic edge, but FiveThirtyEight similarly shows Democrats polling their highest in the aggregate (45.4%) in over a year. (Note: I have used a Civiqs screenshot here since the link is not yet public.) Republicans are still favored to take the House based on gerrymandering and other structural advantages. But if Democrats continue to keep an edge of at least 3 points or more in the generic ballot, they have a fighting chance of maintaining control of the lower chamber.
Trump trending down
People can argue about whether Donald Trump is on the ballot this November, but many Republican candidates in critical races this cycle are Trump endorsees, which certainly makes him at least part of the equation. According to Civiqs, Trump’s favorables have just hit their lowest point since Election Day 2016. Shortly after Trump beat Hillary Clinton, his favorables jumped to 40% and had remained at about 40%-plus, right up until Aug. 25, when he dropped to 39%. The most likely culprit for Trump's recent woes was the news on Aug. 11 that the FBI search at Mar-a-Lago was related to highly sensitive national secrets, including nuclear documents. That revelation does not appear to be wearing well with the public.
x Civiqs Results
With Biden trending up to 40% job approval (favorables at 42%) and Trump trending sub-40, it's safe to say that if a candidate must be associated with one or the other, Biden is likely the better bet.
But in truth, Democrats have been outperforming Biden in special elections and the generic ballot alike, suggesting that voters are separating out their views of the president's performance from the party they want to hold the reins in Congress.
Inflation, another oft-cited data point, remains stubborn, with high housing and food costs continuing to be top of mind for voters. But again, at present, it doesn't seem to be dictating voters' preferences for who they want to control Congress.
And in a bit of good economic news for Democrats, gas prices have been trending downward since they peaked in the summer.
There's plenty of other good economic news, such as job gains, unemployment rate, and wage growth, but pundits had mainly focused on the data points above to make the case that Democrats were doomed this fall.
Generally speaking, the script has flipped on those apocalyptic predictions.
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If you’re interested in polling be sure to check out this week’s episode of The Downballot. The Economist's G. Elliott Morris joins us to discuss the early history of polling in the form of 19th-century straw polls; how we can be smart consumers of polls by placing their uncertainty in context; and the surprises that have stood out in his new model forecasting the 2022 midterms.
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