Gallup has just published their latest poll...
The latest Gallup survey, conducted Aug. 7-10, 2006, finds registered voters more likely to say they will support the Democratic candidate in their district rather than the Republican candidate by a nine-point margin, 50% to 41%.
...in every survey thereafter, the Democratic lead has ranged from nine to 16 points.
...All of the individual results since the Feb. 28-March 1, 2006, survey are within the margins of sampling error of each other. however, it is important to note that none of the last three surveys has shown a Democratic lead of greater than 11 points. If this pattern continues, it will represent a statistically significant narrowing of the gap between the two parties, but still a solid Democratic advantage.
Money quote...
Even a slight narrowing of the Democratic Party's lead among registered voters could be critical to the outcome of the fall elections. If the Republicans continue to trail by 10 or more points among registered voters, it would take an unprecedented GOP advantage in voter turnout for the Republican Party to prevail in the elections. However, if Republicans are able to maintain their normal midterm election advantage over the Democrats in voter turnout, they might be able to surmount an eight- or nine-point deficit among all registered voters to still win a majority of seats in Congress on Election Day.
In the past two midterm elections (1998 and 2002), Republicans were down by nine points and five points, respectively, on the generic ballot among registered voters in Gallup's final pre-election surveys. By virtue of Republicans' higher turnout rates, the Republicans still went on to win a slim majority of seats in Congress.
If Gallup's #s are to believe, this does not bode well for democrats. I compared gallup's poll # in 1998 and 2002 with the final results...
Gallup # Actual Results
1998 D 9% advantage 223(R): 210(D)(R -5, D+5)
2002 D 5% advantage 226(R): 204(D)(R 0, D 0)
Projection:
2006 D 10% advantage 223(R): 210(D)
A lot of kossacks are too rosy about the outlook of this year's midterm elections, they will likely have a disappointing night just like this one
"I totally underestimated the degree with which people just get sick of 24-hour-a-day talk television and talk radio, the degree to which this whole scandal just became sort of disgusting by sheer repetition," House Speaker Newt Gingrich admitted.
"We probably should have almost maniacally focused on cutting taxes, reforming government, working on saving Social Security, recognize that would cause a big fight, accept that was a better fight for us than drifting into October with, as people kept saying, no national themes, no national dialogue," Gingrich said.
In the waning days of the 1998 campaign, the National Republican Congressional Committee shifted gears and began pummeling the Democrats in targeted congressional districts with a $10 million TV ad campaign that touched on Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky.
Although none of the ads mentioned Lewinsky or the prospect of impeachment directly, some did allude to the president's lying to the American public.
The conservative wing of the Republican party blamed Tuesday's loses on a lack of a commitment to conservative values and consistent message on impeachment. "There was no consistent message with regard to impeachment," Rep. Bob Barr of Georgia, one of the president's harshest critics, said Wednesday.
It's strikingly similar. After I listened to a couple of democratic challengers who tried to tie George Bush to their incumbents, I am afraid to say they were doing such a lousy job. It is very bland, very boring.
With election 2 more months to go, where is Howard Dean's promised 'Contract With America'? I don't believe you can expect a repeat of 1994 without any agenda. It's more likely a repeat of 1998, I am afraid.