Gallup: GOP Now Has Slight Midterm Voting Edge Over Dems

Boston Globe:

Republicans, boosted by winning the races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia last week, have more reason for optimism. A new Gallup poll - conducted just after the elections and released yesterday - found the GOP moving ahead of the Democrats in an early peek at next year’s midterm election, largely because of growing support from independent voters.

Among registered voters, 48 percent say they would vote for an unnamed Republican candidate, and 44 percent say they would back the Democratic candidate. That’s a substantial swing from the same poll in July, when 50 percent supported the Democrat and 44 percent the Republican.

The generic GOP candidate leads 52 percent to 30 percent among independent voters, who went heavily for President Obama and Democrats last year. In July, the parties were statistically tied among independents.

Republicans are aiming to retake control of both the House and Senate in 2010 from Democrats, who have substantial majorities in both chambers. If Republicans succeed, Obama’s agenda for the second half of his term would probably be stymied.

“Roughly a year before the 2010 midterm elections, Republicans seem well positioned to win back some of their congressional losses in 2006 and 2008,’’ Gallup said in its analysis.

In another warning sign for Democrats, just 52 percent of registered voters said they want their own representative to be reelected next year and only 34 percent said they wanted to see most lawmakers in general returned to office, according to poll released yesterday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.

Those figures are similar to numbers recorded in 2006 and 1994, the last two elections in which control of both houses of Congress changed political parties, according to the survey.