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GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
August 30, 2010
GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Republicans also maintain wide gap in enthusiasm about voting
by Frank Newport
PRINCETON, NJ -- Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP's largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup's history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress.
These results are based on aggregated data from registered voters surveyed Aug. 23-29 as part of Gallup Daily tracking. This marks the fifth week in a row in which Republicans have held an advantage over Democrats -- one that has ranged between 3 and 10 points.
The Republican leads of 6, 7, and 10 points this month are all higher than any previous midterm Republican advantage in Gallup's history of tracking the generic ballot, which dates to 1942. Prior to this year, the highest such gap was five points, measured in June 2002 and July 1994. Elections in both of these years resulted in significant Republican gains in House seats.
Large leads on the generic ballot are not unprecedented for Democrats. The widest generic ballot lead in Gallup's history was 32 points in the Democrats' favor, measured in July 1974, just prior to Republican President Richard Nixon's resignation over the Watergate scandal. This large margin illustrates Democrats' historic dominance over Republicans in registered voters' party identification in the decades since World War II. Democrats controlled the House of Representatives continually between 1955 and 1995, and routinely held generic ballot leads in the double digits during that period.
Republicans Have 25-Point Lead on Enthusiasm
Republicans are now twice as likely as Democrats to be "very" enthusiastic about voting, and now hold -- by one point -- the largest such advantage of the year.
Republicans usually turn out in higher numbers in midterm elections than do Democrats, and Gallup's likely voter modeling in the final weeks of an election typically reflects a larger GOP advantage than is evident among registered voters. The wide enthusiasm gaps in the GOP's favor so far this year certainly suggest that this scenario may well play itself out again this November.
Bottom Line
The last Gallup weekly generic ballot average before Labor Day underscores the fast-evolving conventional wisdom that the GOP is poised to make significant gains in this fall's midterm congressional elections. Gallup's generic ballot has historically proven an excellent predictor of the national vote for Congress, and the national vote in turn is an excellent predictor of House seats won and lost. Republicans' presumed turnout advantage, combined with their current 10-point registered-voter lead, suggests the potential for a major "wave" election in which the Republicans gain a large number of seats from the Democrats and in the process take back control of the House. One cautionary note: Democrats moved ahead in Gallup's generic ballot for several weeks earlier this summer, showing that change is possible between now and Election Day.
Explore more Gallup data relating to the upcoming congressional midterm elections, including Gallup's complete generic ballot trend since 1950, in our Election 2010 key indicators interactive.
Survey Methods Results are based on telephone interviews conducted as part of Gallup Daily tracking survey Aug. 23-29, 2010, with a random sample of 1,540 registered voters, aged 18 and older, living in all 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia, selected using random-digit-dial sampling.
For results based on the total sample of registered voters, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum margin of sampling error is ±4 percentage points.
Interviews are conducted with respondents on landline telephones and cellular phones, with interviews conducted in Spanish for respondents who are primarily Spanish-speaking. Each daily sample includes a minimum quota of 150 cell phone respondents and 850 landline respondents, with additional minimum quotas among landline respondents for gender within region. Landline respondents are chosen at random within each household on the basis of which member had the most recent birthday.
Samples are weighted by gender, age, race, Hispanic ethnicity, education, region, adults in the household, cell phone-only status, cell phone-mostly status, and phone lines. Demographic weighting targets are based on the March 2009 Current Population Survey figures for the aged 18 and older non-institutionalized population living in U.S. telephone households. All reported margins of sampling error include the computed design effects for weighting and sample design.
In addition to sampling error, question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
For more details on Gallup's polling methodology, visit http://www.gallup.com/.
Big changes are coming
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Good, although I don't see much different from gridlock currently.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
I think the gridlock becomes less precarious.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Fuck. These polls are giving me tired head.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Mikesatx
I think the gridlock becomes less precarious.
How is gridlock precarious?
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
I think it moves from precarious to ponderous.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
TeyshaBlue
I think it moves from precarious to ponderous.
"Almost complete" to "complete."
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Obama has managed to motivate conservatives and at the same time demoralize liberals. That's a pretty impressive accomplishment, if I was a conspiracy theory type I'd start to think he was a republican plant.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Nah, all it took was a black man with an Arabic name.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Liberals & independents that elected him remembered they are racist?
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
republicans also maintain wide gap in enthusiasm about voting
rif
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Ron Paul is going to be Speaker of the House next year!
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Galileo
Ron Paul is going to be Speaker of the House next year!
No chance.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Really Snakeboy, the economy took care of the rest.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Galileo
Ron Paul is going to be Speaker of the House next year!
I'd love to see that, but no.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ChumpDumper
Really Snakeboy, the economy took care of the rest.
Yeah I know, but the Summer of "You're a racist!" Threads is almost over so I thought I'd get at least one post in while I still had a chance.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ChumpDumper
No chance.
and Rand Paul will be Senate majority leader.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SnakeBoy
Yeah I know, but the Summer of "You're a racist!" Threads is almost over so I thought I'd get at least one post in while I still had a chance.
Oh, there will still be racists and Islamophobes, ignorant and flat out stupid people around forever. The evidence is here every day.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Galileo
and Rand Paul will be Senate majority leader.
How much do you want to bet on that?
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
coyotes_geek
I'd love to see that, but no.
it could happen.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Galileo
it could happen.
Seriously, I have to ask do you really belie...oh nevermind.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
ChumpDumper
How much do you want to bet on that?
you're just upset that the democrats are losing.
:lmao
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
SnakeBoy
Seriously, I have to ask do you really belie...oh nevermind.
I was just joking. But Ron Paul will be a powerful player next year.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Galileo
you're just upset that the democrats are losing.
:lmao
So you aren't serious and won't bet.
Cool.
The Democrats largely deserve a loss in 2010.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
When the economy lost what little steam it had then they Democrats lost any chance they had at stemming the GOP tide. I don't believe that this vote will be one in favor of the GOP (look at the polls - the US public isn't happy with the GOP they're just pissed in general and they're going to take it out on incumbents which happen to be mostly Democrats) but they'll benefit from it.
The biggest mistake Obama and company made was the size of the stimulus and its going to hurt them quite a bit. They probably should have gone all in on that piece of legislation because it would have done better and it would have given them more of a mandate. But instead as Snake has said, has managed to kill a lot of the sentiment that got him elected from progressives while serving as a motivation to the GOP.
I'm not sure to what extent the GOP will gain seats. I still don't believe they have much of a chance to control the Senate but it really doesn't matter since there is likely not to be any type of meaningful legislation that will be passed with under 60 votes.
The government is likely to just go further into gridlock as has been expressed. I don't see how anyone wins with status quo but thats what we're going to get.
No amount of ground zero mosques or oil spills or any other subject matter as much right now as the economy. Its so much bigger than anything else out there. Short of a terrorist attack I don't see anything supplanting it as the deciding factor. Bad economy = GOP gains.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Galileo
and Rand Paul will be Senate majority leader.
Now that is some funny shit right there.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Galileo
it could happen.
In the sense that there are only 435 potential candidates to be SOH and Ron Paul will be one of them, sure.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
clambake
what big changes?
I love the cluelessness.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Yonivore
what will change, yoni?
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
i understand you can't answer.
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
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Re: GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
I anticipate things will tighten up as we inch closer to the midterms.....but even at this point, I don't see the GOP taking the Senate....the House will be close and anti-incumbency fever may throw it to the GOP.....but like Manny said, if this happens expect Govt. grid-lock as the GOP does anything, and everything to try and stall any Obama legislation...whatever the cost, even stallworths good for the economy and national security...
