More Voters Favor Republican Control of Congress

Washington, D.C. – With the midterm elections just about two weeks away, voters say they'd much rather have the Republicans in charge of Congress over the next two years.

According to data released Wednesday by Rasmussen Reports, 62% of those surveyed who are likely to cast a ballot in the election said it was important the GOP win control of at least one congressional chamber on November 8. Nearly half of all voters, 48 %, said that outcome was “very important” in determining how they would vote.

The numbers come as no surprise given the way GOP candidates in every region of the country have seen a surge in support following the release of the latest economic data which, as many analysts have said, the Biden White House should find troubling even though voters who make their decisions late in the cycle tend to break against the party in power.

Democrat Mark Longabaugh, who took part in Bernie Sanders' 2016 run for the presidency told Politico, “I've been at this for 30 years, and it is always the period in late September and early October when an election starts to tilt and move. So, we're at that moment, and I don't think you can look at these numbers across the country and say anything, but it looks like it's moving in the Republicans' direction.”

Biden's approval numbers, which have been up and down as much as the price of gasoline suggest the president's performance in office is increasingly a drag on members of his party running for governor, the United States Senate or the House of Representatives.

Taking the longer-term view, Rasmussen Reports says the question regarding preference for which party controls Congress may better predict the eventual outcome than the generic ballot test. In the 2018 midterms, the pollster said, the Democrats held a slight edge on the question, something that turned out to be prescient.

“The findings show Republicans have an advantage over Democrats in voter intensity, and the GOP also leads decisively among independent voters,” the polling firm said in its analysis, pointing to two key factors that analysts consider when forecasting election outcomes.

Looking deeper into the data, the firm found that while 79% of Democrats felt it was “at least somewhat important” their party be in charge of Congress after the election, almost 87% of Republicans indicated they felt the same way. Significantly, more Republicans (77%) than Democrats (64%) said they saw their party's congressional control as “Very Important” in determining how they vote in the midterms.

“Among voters not affiliated with either major party,” Rasmussen reports said, “57% say it's at least somewhat important that the GOP wins at least one of the chambers of Congress in the upcoming elections, compared to 37% who see Democrats retaining control as at least somewhat important.”

The news for Democrats broken out across various demographics is not much better. According to the survey of 1,000 people likely to vote in November, 55% of whites, 30% of blacks and 37% of people belonging to “other” minority groups said having control of Congress pass to the GOP beginning in January 2023 was “Very Important” to them. Just 39% of whites, 40% of blacks and 24% of “other minorities” told the pollster it was equally critical for the party in power in the House and Senate to remain in charge.

The shift in attitudes about the two parties, especially among those voters who call themselves “independent” is striking. As late as September, election prognosticators were projecting a possible takeover of the U.S. Senate by the Democrats outright, obviating the need for Vice President Kamala Harris to be present to cast deciding votes in what is now an evenly split chamber.

They also cast doubt, though not as readily, on the consensus the Republicans – who need just five additional seats to constitute a majority – would take over control of the U.S. House of Representatives. In the ensuing weeks, as the polls have shifted nationally and in race after race, the question has evolved from “whether the Democrats could hang on” to “How many seats under 200 will the minority party be?”

The Senate numbers are equally impressive, with many races considered lost to the GOP suddenly back in contention. Democrats will say that's largely a product of the late vote coming home while Republicans are more likely to suggest the polls have been off badly, something that has been the case in recent elections.

In Pennsylvania, for example, Republican Mehmet Oz has fought his way back from a narrow victory in a divided primary that had many people projecting his loss in the general election. He is now shown in many polls to be even or narrowly ahead, inside the margin of error, in his fight to keep Pennsylvania Lt. Gov. John Fetterman from winning for the Democrats a seat held by the GOP's Pat Toomey since 2011.

Nevada Democrat Catherine Cortez Masto also finds herself unexpectedly running even with or slightly behind former Nevada Attorney General Adam Paul Laxalt, who two years ago lost a bid for governor. The late shift in the polls in the Silver State, where voters swept the Republicans out of power in 2020, has some analysts thinking they may be ready to sweep them back in.

Even in New York, a state that saw many Republican-leaning voters depart during the pandemic for warmer climes where the breezes were balmy and the taxes were lower, the Republicans are starting to surge. Several recent polls have shown Republican Congressman Lee Zeldin at or near even with Gov. Kathy Hochul, who assumed office after her predecessor, Andrew Cuomo, was driven from office by scandal. There may not be enough right-leaning voters left in the Empire State to hand the governorship to the GOP but the shift in the preferences of independents could loom large in determining the outcome.

Looking out across the states, Republicans are running strong in places they have no business running at all, based on electoral history. One of those, Indiana's Gary-based 1^st congressional district was once considered to be such a solidly, even hopelessly Democratic seat that few of the Republicans who ran there ever made an impact.

Joe Biden won it in 2020 with 53.6% of the vote against 44% for Donald Trump. Now, in 2022, black Republican Air Force veteran Jennifer-Ruth Green is making such a spirited run against Democrat incumbent Frank Mrvan some highly-respected analysts consider it a toss-up. Moreover, the fact Green's got “boots on the ground” in Northwest Indiana boosts the rest of the GOP ticket.

This isn't just happening in Indiana. It's happening in Kansas and Minnesota and Michigan and Wisconsin and other states in which the Democrats expected to do well but haven't closed the deal and look increasingly like they may lose the sale. Local races by GOP-backed candidates for offices like county commissioner and school board pushing back against COVID-related school closures and Critical Race Theory and for the right of parents to oversee their children's education are giving the Republicans a lift like they haven't seen at least since the 1920s, perhaps ever.

A lot could happen between now and November 8 that could affect turnout and candidate and party preference could change the outcome considerably. Likewise, all the votes that have already been cast cannot be changed, limiting the ability of candidates in both parties to take advantage of a poor debate performance or other last-minute stumbles by their opponent.

The polls themselves are advisory. Even ones like the Rasmussen reports survey of 1,000 U.S. likely voters conducted on October 24 & 25, 2022 that has a +/- 3 percentage point sampling error with a 95% confidence level. But even if the numbers are off, the trend is there. The electorate is now moving away from the Democrats.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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