Good News for the Congressional GOP?

Have Congressional Republicans turned the corner? There's reason for optimism. Obviously there has been news heartening to Republicans in the last few weeks: the death of Zarqawi, the completion of an Iraqi government, a focus on stopping illegal immigration, consistently good news on the economy, etc.

And if you look at the generic Congressional ballot, the numbers show improvement for Republicans. Sorry my HTML coding is so poor; the numbers below are hard to read here. You may prefer to simply look at them at the link above. However, a quick summary:

From February 28 to May 11, a total of 18 national polls of registered voters were taken, asking whether the voter intended to support the Republican or the Democrat in the 2006 Congressional elections. Of those, 16 showed a Democratic lead in double digits. Since May 15 however, 3 national polls have shown a Democratic lead of fewer than 10 points. Is this the start of improved standing for Republican Congressional candidates?

Keep in mind too, that Republicans invariably perform more poorly among registered voters than among likely voters, because Democratic-leaning voters are generally less likely to show up on election day. This means that Republican standing is probably better than shown in the polls.

USA Today/Gallup RV 6/1-4/06 42 51 7 9 D
Diageo/Hotline RV 5/18-21/06 36 42 22 6 D
Fabrizio, McLaughlin (R) LV 5/15-17/06 36 39 25 3 D
ABC/Washington Post RV 5/11-15/06 40 52 9 12 D
Newsweek RV 5/11-12/06 39 50 11 11 D
CBS/New York Times RV 5/4-8/06 33 44 23 11 D
CNN RV 5/5-7/06 38 52 10 14 D
FOX/Opinion Dynamics RV 5/2-3/06 38 41 21 3 D
USA Today/Gallup RV 4/28-30/06 39 54 7 15 D
Cook/RT Strategies 4/27-30/06 32 44 24 12 D
CNN RV 4/21-23/06 40 50 9 10 D
Pew RV 4/7-16/06 41 51 8 10 D
USA Today/Gallup RV 4/7-9/06 42 52 6 10 D
ABC/Washington Post RV 4/6-9/06 40 55 5 15 D
CBS RV 4/6-9/06 34 44 22 10 D
Time RV 3/22-23/06 41 50 9 9 D
Newsweek RV 3/16-17/06 39 50 11 11 D
NPR LV 3/12-14/06 37 52 11 15 D
CNN/USA Today/Gallup RV 3/10-12/06 39 55 7 16 D
FOX/Opinion Dynamics RV 2/28 - 3/1/06 34 48 18 14 D
CNN/USA Today/Gallup RV 2/28 - 3/1/06 39 53 7 14 D

Back to the top.