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Democrats have double-digit advantage in midterm elections, polls show

Posted at 7:42 AM, Sep 04, 2018
and last updated 2018-09-04 09:42:41-04

Two polls released Tuesday show Democrats with a double-digit advantage over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot two months ahead of the midterm elections.

Registered voters favor the Democratic candidate over the Republican nominee in their own district, 52% to 38%, a 14-point gap, according to a ABC News-Washington Post poll.

According to another poll released Tuesday by USA Today-Suffolk University, 50% of registered voters support the Democratic candidate in their district while 39% prefer the Republican candidate — an 11-point advantage.

Sixty percent of voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress “as a check on Trump,” up from 52% saying so last summer, over keeping Republicans in power “to support Trump’s agenda,” per the ABC News-Washington Post poll.

In the USA Today-Suffolk University poll, 58% of voters say they want to elect a Congress that mostly stands up to Trump, compared to 34% who say they’d rather have a Congress that mostly cooperates with him.

Enthusiasm to vote in the November elections is also slightly higher among Democrats than Republicans in the ABC News-Washington Post poll. An overwhelming majority, 80%, of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters say they are “absolutely certain” to turn out, versus 74% of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters.

Seventy-five percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters think voting this year is “more important” than past midterm elections, outweighing 57% of Republicans and Republican-leaning voters who say the same.

Democrats need to flip 23 seats to win control of the House. Historically, the president’s party loses seats in the midterm elections.

The ABC News-Washington Post poll was conducted August 26-29 among a national random sample of 1,003 adults and 879 registered voters reached via landlines or cellphones. The poll has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points, while the sample of registered voters has an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

The USA Today-Suffolk University poll was conducted August 23-28 among 1,000 registered voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. Voters were reached via cellphone or landline.