Democrats’ generic ballot lead for midterm elections shrinks: poll

A new poll finds that Democrats’ lead over Republicans in a generic congressional ballot has dropped threefold since August in yet another sign of the GOP’s momentum advantage with less than a week to go until Election Day. 

The Yahoo News/YouGov survey has captured the downward spiral of the Democratic Party since August, when Democrats led by 6 points in the generic congressional ballot. In late September, the same poll saw Democrats’ lead slip to 4 points. And now in the final Yahoo News/YouGov poll before the Nov. 8 midterm elections, the Democrats’ lead is down to 2 points. 

The survey released on Thursday found that among 1,641 registered voters, 46% say they will vote Democrat and 44% say they will vote Republican. It’s effectively a tie, as the poll’s margin for error is 2.7 percentage points. 

Among those who have already voted or say they will “definitely vote” on Election Day, 49% said they would vote for a Democrat, and 47% said Republican.

The poll also found that voter enthusiasm is favoring Republicans despite more early voting participants saying they voted for Democrats. 

Among registered Democratic voters, 74% have either already voted or say they will “definitely” vote. The number is 7 points higher for registered Republicans, with 81% saying they’ve already voted or will definitely vote.

Other recent polls have also shown Republicans surging and overtaking Democrats on the generic congressional ballot. 

A Wall Street Journal poll released on Tuesday found Republicans leading by 2 points and a Suffolk University-USA Today poll from last week showed the GOP up by 4 points.

The Yahoo News/YouGov poll also measured what issue voters care about the most, and like numerous other surveys, inflation was cited as the top issue by 38% of voters.  

Also spelling trouble for Democrats, a full 63% of voters said that inflation is “getting worse,” and only 17% said that it’s “getting better.” Republicans also beat Democrats by a wide margin, 43% to 34%,  on the question of which party would do a “better job” on inflation.

The poll was conducted from Oct. 27 to Oct. 31.