Hominid Views

As Goldy reported earlier this afternoon, Democrats have opened up a huge lead in a generic House ballot according to a new USA Today/Gallup Poll.

The sample of 1007 likely voters selected a generic Democratic candidate 59% of the time over a generic Republican candidate at 36%.

As Goldy points out:

Yeah, it’s just a generic ballot and all that, but at this stage in the game the generic ballot is supposed to be narrowing, not widening. And sure, Republican loyalists may try to seek consolation, telling themselves that this devastating poll is just an outlier. But word has at that another major poll, still embargoed, will show almost identical results.

In fact there were two other such polls released today—in addition to the USA Today/Gallup poll.

A CNN/Opinion Research poll was released. The sample of 543 likely voters selected a generic Democratic candidate 58% of the time over a generic Republican candidate at 37%.

Finally, a ABC News/Washington Post poll was released. The sample of 1,204 registered voters selected a generic Democratic candidate 54% of the time over a generic Republican candidate at 41%. This poll is the most favorable of the three for the Republicans; even so, as they point out:

That’s the biggest Democratic lead this close to Election Day in more than 20 years.

Nope…not an outlier. Republican congressional candidates really are on the voter’s shit-list right now.

Update: There was a fourth poll released today that I just learned about. This one is by CBS/New York Times. The sample of 891 registered voters selected a generic Democratic candidate 49% of the time over a generic Republican candidate at 35%. This poll had 17% who gave other answers (”don’t know,” “depends,” “won’t vote,” etc.); the normalized values are 58% to 42%.

Update II: On Tuesday a new such poll was released by Cook/RT-Strategies. The sample of 950 registered voters selected a generic Democratic candidate 54% of the time over a generic Republican candidate at 36%. Does this dismal view of Republicans reflect a transient effect of Foleygate? Unlikely…the poll was completed several days before the scandal broke.