Democrats, Republicans equally angry ahead of midterms: poll

Close to equal proportions of Democrats and Republicans say the word “angry” describes their feelings about the November midterms for Congress “somewhat” or “very” well, according to a new poll.

A Morning Consult State of the Parties survey found that 42 percent of Democrats and 41 percent of Republicans surveyed said the word “angry” described their feelings about the midterms “somewhat” or “very well.” 

In comparison, when respondents from both parties were polled on the same question in 2018, 49 percent of Democrats and 28 percent of Republicans said they felt angry.

In the latest poll, 61 percent of Democrats and 49 percent of Republicans said the word “worried” described their feelings about the midterms “somewhat” or “very” well, while 41 percent of Democrats and 50 percent of Republicans said they were confident.

Twenty-eight percent of Democrats and 27 percent of Republicans said they felt indifferent.

The polling comes less than three months before the Nov. 8 midterm elections. Democrats are expected to face several headwinds, including President Biden’s lagging approval ratings and inflation, which recent data has shown has started to cool off but is still at decades-high levels.

But Democrats have also seen a slew of developments that could help them ahead of Election Day, including an impressive July jobs report, high fundraising hauls from a number of Democratic Senate candidates and the recent passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. 

Democrats are also hoping that the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade will fuel a surge of voters to head to the polls. Some abortion rights advocates and Democrats are optimistic that that might be the case after Kansas voters became the first ones to weigh in on the issue following the high court’s decision and defeated a ballot measure that would have given the state legislature more authority to regulate access to the procedure.

The Morning Consult poll was conducted on Aug. 3 and Aug. 4 with 697 Republicans and 806 Democrats surveyed. The margin of error is plus or minus 4 percentage points.