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Surveys Show House Dems Maintain "Nearly Landslide Leads" Heading Into '08 Elections
Despite growing disapproval of Congress, Democratic House candidates -- both incumbents and challengers -- are steadily gaining ground for a 2008 election likely to be a repeat of 2006, according to two surveys (here and here) by Democracy Corps.
The surveys dispute the hardening conventional wisdom that the failure of Democrats to force the start of withdrawal from Iraq has turned voters against both parties. The notion that the public sees Democrats and Republicans as "equal offenders...completely misreads the current moment," according to Democracy Corps.
Instead, the authors of an accompanying memo -- Stan Greenberg, James Carville and Ana Iparraguirre -- contend that "Democrats are maintaining stable and nearly landslide leads in both the race for President as measured by generic performance (51-41) and the named ballot for Congress (52-42 percent)."
In a targeted survey of the 70 congressional districts most likely to be competitive in 2008 (half with Democratic incumbents, the other half with Republicans in office), Democracy Corps found that Democratic incumbents hold a solid 52-40 lead on average. In contrast, the Republicans are in trouble: when voters are asked whom they would choose between the named GOP incumbent and an unnamed (generic) Democrat, the Republicans are behind on average 44-49.
Posted by Thomas B. Edsall
Huffington Post | July 31, 2007 02:48 PM