Brace yourself:
The final USA Today/Gallup measure of Americans' voting intentions for Congress shows Republicans continuing to hold a substantial lead over Democrats among likely voters, a lead large enough to suggest that regardless of turnout, the Republicans will win more than the 40 seats needed to give them the majority in the U.S. House.
The results are from Gallup's Oct. 28-31 survey of 1,539 likely voters. It finds 52% to 55% of likely voters preferring the Republican candidate and 40% to 42% for the Democratic candidate on the national generic ballot -- depending on turnout assumptions. Gallup's analysis of several indicators of voter turnout from the weekend poll suggests turnout will be slightly higher than in recent years, at 45%. This would give the Republicans a 55% to 40% lead on the generic ballot, with 5% undecided.
The GOP lead is only four points among registered voters, so Gallup assumes a massive intensity gap. Any efforts to mitigate the damage will be predicated on turnout and GOTV. But even then, we're going to suffer serious losses.
And even if you want to quibble with Gallup's model, and it certainly has its problems, the trends are still brutal for us. Among registered voters:
GOP Dem
10/28-31: 48 44
10/14-17: 48 44
10/7-10: 48 43
9/30-10/3: 46 43
9/23-26: 46 46
9/13-19: 45 46
Note, each point is worth about 6-10 House seats (and yes, national trends do have an impact at the race-specific level). So a five point swing means more than you'd think at first blush. And it's not just Gallup showing Democrats in a free-fall. Nate has a sobering chart:
We can nibble at the margins, try and rescue good individual Dems here and there. But the overall trends are brutal, and Nate's prediction of +53 is sounding about right, if not optimistic.
