Democrats hold 3-point advantage on generic congressional ballot ahead of midterms

Forty-six percent of registered voters said they will vote for Democratic candidates in the midterm elections, a 3-point lead over Republicans, according to a Politico-Morning Consult poll released on Wednesday.

The pollster has asked the question weekly as the elections approach, with Democrats holding a slight lead in each iteration for more than a month.

Forty-three percent in the latest poll indicated support for Republicans, while 12 percent said they didn’t know or had no opinion.

A majority of voters — 53 percent — who ranked the economy as their No. 1 issue favored Republicans, with 34 percent of those respondents supporting Democrats.

Voters who ranked energy, education, health care, Medicare or Social Security as their top problem, however, favored Democrats.

Seventy-six percent of voters ranking women’s issues as their top issues favored Democrats in November, compared to just 11 percent who indicated support for Republicans.

The survey is the latest measure suggesting what could be a closer contest for control of Congress in November following the Supreme Court’s overturning of federal abortion protections.

A Monmouth University generic congressional ballot poll released on Monday showed the GOP with the edge, leading Democrats by 3 points. A Yahoo News-YouGov poll released on Friday found a 4-point lead for Democrats.

For months, Republicans have looked to tie President Biden and Democrats to rising prices as annual inflation hit a 40-year high, also portraying the party as supporting open borders and being soft on crime.

But Democrats are hoping the high court’s abortion ruling will energize their party’s members to turn out in November and convince moderates to choose pro-abortion rights candidates. The party has also cast former President Trump’s “Make America Great Again” movement as a threat to democracy.

Nonpartisan analysts suggest Republicans remain favored to flip the House, but Democrats appear more likely to maintain their razor-thin Senate majority.

FiveThirtyEight’s forecast as of Wednesday morning indicates Republicans have a 69 percent chance of flipping the House while only a 34 percent chance of flipping the Senate.

But the battle over Senate control could come down to a few nail-biting contests. 

Races in Nevada, Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin are seen as some of the most competitive in this year’s elections, although both parties are still heavily investing in other contests, including New Hampshire and Arizona.

The poll was conducted online Sept. 30-Oct. 2 with 2,005 registered voters. The margin of error is 2 percentage points.