As the seismic Supreme Court ruling stripping Americans of abortion rights ripples through the country, multiple polls are now seeing movement toward Democrats in the congressional generic ballot contest.
Those polls include a several-point shift picked up in the Civiqs' generic ballot tracking poll as well as the following pre-/post-decision surveys:
Internal data from Civiqs tracking is picking up the same trend, with a net shift of 4 points toward Democrats from before the ruling gutting Roe v. Wade to after it was released.
Overall, Civiqs now shows Democrats with a 5-point edge in the generic ballot, 47% Democrat - 42% Republican. The data is not publicly accessible, but here's the screen shot.
All Registered Voters: If the election for U.S. House of Representatives were held today, would you vote for the:
Notably, Democrats and Republicans are basically stable in the crosstabs, with 93% on both sides favoring candidates from their respective parties. Nearly all the uptick for Democrats comes from independents moving away from Republicans. Before the ruling, independents favored Republicans over Democrats, 42% - 34%; now, independents favor Republicans by just 1 point, 38% - 37%.
Independent Voters: If the election for U.S. House of Representatives were held today, would you vote for the:
The movement among independents came from both women and men. Women moved from being nearly even on the parties, 38% Democrats - 37% Republicans, to favoring Democrats by 6 points, 40% - 34%.
Independent women: If the election for U.S. House of Representatives were held today, would you vote for the:
Independent men moved from favoring Republicans by 19 points, 48% - 29%, to favoring Republicans by 9 points, 43% - 34%.
Independent men: If the election for U.S. House of Representatives were held today, would you vote for the:
From a 30,000-foot view, what's perhaps most heartening for Democrats is the fact that the generic ballot appears to have reverted to roughly where it was in the spring of 2021, 47% D - 42% R, when the national political environment was wildly different. At the time, President Joe Biden's approvals were still above water by double digits, vaccines were still being rolled out, the omicron variant hadn't taken hold yet, and U.S. troops hadn't pulled out of Afghanistan yet. It was basically the salad days of Biden's presidency.
Needless to say, things are very different now, with pessimism sweeping the nation. Civiqs tracking now shows 81% of registered voters believe the country is heading in the “wrong direction.” But at least for the moment, voters appear to be reaching a somewhat similar conclusion about their preferred party as they had in the early days of the Biden administration—even if for very different reasons.
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