Both NBC News/Wall Street Journal and ABC/Washington Post have released new polls on the state of the American electorate, eight weeks before the mid-term elections. To nobody's surprise, the survey results are alarming for Congressional Democrats.
Both surveys indicate that among likely voters, the GOP has over a 10% point (at least) lead in the generic question of would you rather support a Democrat or a Republican for Congress at the polls this November. In the WaPo poll, that edge is now 16% higher for Republicans, and double what it was in July.
How much of this GOP love comes from people fantasizing about a Speaker Boehner or a Senate President McConnell? Pollsters Peter Hart and Bill McInturff write that "just 31% of "all voters and independents alike say most GOP lawmakers have earned another term."
The NBC/WSJ survey shows that only 30% of Americans say the country is going in the right direction, while a massive 61% think it's going to hell in a handbasket, or some variation of that. In 2006, when the Democrats won back both houses of Congress after 12 years as the minority, that figure was similar, with 31% saying things were okay, and 54% saying that they weren't.
This article appears in Sep 2-8, 2010.