House Polls Show Close Races, and Hints of Democrats’ Strength
With less than two months until the midterms, the races that seem likely to decide control of Congress remain strikingly close, according to a first wave of New York Times Upshot/Siena College polls.
Posted — UpdatedWith less than two months until the midterms, the races that seem likely to decide control of Congress remain strikingly close, according to a first wave of New York Times Upshot/Siena College polls.
To take over the House, Democrats need to wrest at least 23 districts from Republican control. As of Thursday there were poll results from nine: seven tossup districts and two districts that lean Republican, according to the Cook Political Report.
In the seven tossups, the result was within 1 point in five of them, though Democrats claimed a 9-point lead in Minnesota’s 3rd District, where the incumbent, Erik Paulsen, trailed the Democrat, Dean Phillips, 51 percent to 42 percent. Republicans had an 8-point polling lead in each of the two races thought to lean Republican.
There is little hard evidence indicating that either party has claimed a clear edge, and at this stage it’s no surprise.
A big reason is that the heart of the campaign season is only now getting underway. The polls contain intriguing hints of how the dynamics might shift in the coming weeks. In general, they bear out the expectations fed by special election results, strong Democratic fundraising, national polls and the history of midterm elections that this will be a strong year for Democrats.
Democrats show unusual energy, outpacing Republicans in indicating their intention to vote. Republican incumbents show signs of weakness. And the national political environment appears as tough for Republicans in the battleground districts as one would expect based on the president’s approval numbers and the generic congressional ballot (almost a 9-point edge for Democrats).
Democrats can take the House if they win about half of the races currently rated as tossups by the Cook Political Report — or, if they fall short in tossups, by claiming a few races that currently lean Republican.
Even though the two Republican-leaning districts we surveyed went as expected, the sheer number of races where Republicans are thought to have only a modest advantage poses a risk to the party. If a few of these races slip into the tossup column, Democrats will claim a clearer advantage in the fight for control.
People who pay close attention to politics have been obsessing over the race for the House for a long time. Ordinary voters, though, do not seem to have tuned in yet.
In eight of the nine races, more than 40 percent of voters said they did not have an opinion of the Democratic candidate. Amy McGrath, the former Marine fighter pilot who raised millions after a widely shared biographical ad, is the exception.
So far, Democrats are doing better among likely voters — those deemed to have a higher chance of turning out — than among registered voters.
Overall, Democrats lead by 2 points among likely voters, 46 percent to 44 percent, in the tossup races, while they lead by just 1 point among registered voters, 43-42.
It is a small difference, but it is striking in historical context. Republicans have almost always done better among likely voters than registered voters, and in recent midterm elections the gap has been particularly significant — perhaps as much as 5 or 6 points.
Democrats might have some additional upside, too. They lead by 4 points in the tossup races among registered voters who say they are “almost certain” to vote.
The overall national political environment, which seems to favor the Democrats, does appear to be filtering down to the battleground districts. President Donald Trump has a 42 percent approval rating on average in our seven tossup districts, about 7 points beneath the 49 percent he won across the districts in 2016. You could roughly extrapolate that to a 39 percent approval rating nationwide, which is pretty close to recent national surveys.
In the generic ballot — which asks people whether they intend to vote for a Democrat or a Republican for Congress — Democrats have a 3-point lead in these districts. It is a modest advantage, but it is also impressive for seven districts that voted for Trump by 5 points.
Republican incumbents have not fallen behind in most of the races polled, but their position does not look too strong, either.
In the tossup districts, only two Republicans — Andy Barr in Kentucky, who led by 1 point with 47 percent in Kentucky’s 6th, and Dave Brat, who led by 3 points with 47 percent in Virginia’s 7th — have held more than 45 percent of the vote. And only two Republicans in the tossup districts — Mike Bost, who had a plus-10 favorability rating in Illinois’ 12th, and Brat, who had a plus-13 rating — had meaningfully positive net-favorability ratings. It’s hard to give them too much credit because these are districts where Trump won comfortably in 2016.
Two incumbents — Pete Roskam and Dana Rohrabacher — even had a negative favorability rating. Their deficit is particularly striking considering they are in districts where Republicans outnumber Democrats.
There was one Republican who stood out as particularly strong: Will Hurd, in Texas’ 23rd. This is a classic battleground district, but he had an impressive 51 percent favorable rating, with only 29 percent unfavorable.
Hurd voted against the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and he wrote an op-ed in The New York Times suggesting that Trump had been manipulated by Russian intelligence. His efforts to distinguish himself from the national party appear to have paid off. The race had already been considered “lean Republican,” and he leads in our poll by 8 points.
If you’re a die-hard partisan, U.S. politics is pretty straightforward. You know your party. You vote for your party.
So far, that has not been quite the case.
These districts voted very differently in the presidential election in 2016, with results ranging from Clinton plus-9 to Trump plus-49 (in West Virginia’s 3rd).
In mostly white working-class areas with strong Democratic roots, Republican incumbents are struggling against Democrats who fit their districts a lot better than the national Democratic Party does.
In West Virginia’s 3rd, the pro-coal, pro-teachers’ union Democrat, Richard Ojeda, has a lot more to work with than the district’s presidential election results or Trump’s 62 percent favorability rating in the district would suggest.
Registered Democrats still outnumber Republicans by a wide margin there, and respondents have a favorable opinion of Ojeda, 35 percent to 21 percent. That is better than the favorability rating for his Republican opponent, Carol Miller.
Democrats, meanwhile, are struggling a bit in well-educated and traditionally Republican districts where the Republican incumbent is a much better fit for the district than Trump is.
The polls we conduct in the coming weeks should give us a clearer idea of whether one party holds an edge.
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