Posted by
Adam Graham on Monday, November 06, 2006 9:27:57 AM
Cross posted from Where I Stand:
The good news kept rolling in for the Republicans this weekend. The once mighty double digit lead in the Generic ballot has shrunk for Democrats. According to the Pew Center, it's down to 4 points, Gallup has it at 7%, and ABC/Washington Post poll has it at 6%
Captain Ed explains Democrats have lost in numerous key constituency groups:
The last Pew Research poll was taken in early October. In a month, the Democrats have lost non-minorities altogether. The gap among all whites went from +5 Democrats to +5 GOP, a ten-point swing. White females had supported Democrats by a 15-point margin and a majority (55-40), but now give the GOP a 2-point lead. The Democrats have also lost the middle class, a big problem in this election.
Households earning between $50K-$75K and $30K-$50K have both slipped to the GOP. The former switched from a 14-point margin for the Democrats to an eight-point Republican lead, while the latter has had an even more dramatic shift. Those earners had favored Democrats by 22 points, but now go Republican by 3. The Democrats even lost the tie they had with earners above $75K, and now trail there by seven. They did extend their margin for earners below $30K from 25 points to 30.
In the religious demographics, where the Democrats have tried mightily to find some traction, they also have problems. They held a thin lead (5 points) among all Protestants, but now trail by 9. Their ten-point lead among white mainline Protestants has dissipated into a tie. They lead among all Catholic, having lost three points off of an eight-point lead, but non-Hispanic Catholics now favor the GOP by 5 points, a ten-point shift.
Even in areas where Democrats maintained their leads, they have cause for some nail-biting. They lost part of their margin among self-described moderates, going from a whopping 44 points to 27. They had led in all regions of the country a month ago, but now have lost the South altogether in a 16-point shift, and a 26-point gap in the Northeast has narrowed to nine points -- a remarkable comeback for Republicans in a liberal stronghold. The GOP also cut the Democratic lead among urban voters from 32 points to 10.
Important thing to note is that Democrats always lead in the generic ballot, but unless it's by a very high margin, it doesn't constitute a national "wave." In addition, polling has been sparse and unreliable in House District's across the country so who knows what will happen on Tuesday in the House.
Meanwhile, Republicans seem to be battling back in Senate Races with Rhode Island and Montana that I once thought to be likely Democratic pick-ups have moved into the toss-up category along with Missouri and Virginia. Tennessee looks like it has slipped away from the Democrat's grasp. The only two incumbents I feel certain are going down are Santorum of Pennsylvania and DeWine of Ohio. At the same time, Maryland is a toss-up. What this means for Democrats is that in order to take the Senate, they would have to run the board. Given the recent momentum shift, I don't think that's going to happen.
At the same time in the aftermath of the Saddam verdict, the President's day by day poll tracking numbers through Rasmussen jumped to 45% and as Alex McClure argues those numbers could be as high as 47-48% on election nationwide on election day.
The House and Senate were declared certain to be Democratic after the Mark Foley scandal but to quote Rocky, "Nothing's over." In Idaho it is 24 hours and 40 minutes until the poll's open and then 11 hours later, it'll be "over."