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Generic ballot polls suggest possible epic party disaster for Dems

By: Michael Barone
Senior Political Analyst
01/29/10 1:06 PM EST

The Real Clear Politics average on the generic ballot  now shows Republicans ahead 46%-42%. This is historically unprecedented.

Except for a single CNN/USA Today poll conducted right after the Republican National Convention, September 5-7, 2008, which seems to have been an outlier, Republicans didn’t take the lead on the generic ballot—which party’s candidate will you vote for in House races—until  March 9-15, 2009, in Rasmussen polling (which samples likely voters and whose results have therefore leaned more Republican than those of other pollsters since Barack Obama’s inauguration). Republicans since took a lead in the NPR poll (July 22-26), Gallup (November 5-8), Bloomberg News (December 3-7), Battleground (December 6-10), CNN/Opinion Research (January 8-10) and Democracy Corps (January 7-11).

I blogged on the generic vote in December and twice in November. Gallup analyst Jeffrey M. Jones provides useful historic perspective.

“Since Gallup regularly began using the generic ballot to measure registered voters' preferences for the House of Representatives in 1950, it has been rare for Republicans to have an advantage over Democrats. This is likely because more Americans usually identify as Democrats than as Republicans, but Republicans can offset this typical Democratic advantage in preferences with greater turnout on Election Day. Most of the prior Republican registered-voter leads on the generic ballot in Gallup polling occurred in 1994 and 2002, two strong years for the GOP.”

Over the years Republicans have tended to do better in actual House elections than they have on the generic vote question -- although in recent cycles less so, perhaps because the balance of enthusiasm so clearly favored Democrats in 2006 and 2008. But the balance of enthusiasm has clearly changed.

Rasmussen’s tight likely-voter screen has been pretty consistently producing more pro-Republican responses than other polls, and recent generic vote results from other pollsters tend to validate his results. Thus CNN/Opinion Research shows all adults as 46%-45% Republican and registered voters as 48%-45% Republican. Democracy Corps, run by Democrats Stanley Greenberg and James Carville, shows likely voters at 41%-41% and “dropoff voters” at 43%-25% Democratic. NPR, conducted jointly by Public Opinion Strategies (R) and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (D), shows Republicans ahead among likely voters 44%-39%.

[snip]

Of course, the elections will not be held today. [snip]

Nonetheless, what we have here are the makings of an epic party disaster. Whether it comes to pass is still uncertain. But it certainly could.

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