A new Wall Street Journal poll shows growing support for Democratic Congressional candidates:
A new poll shows an uptick in support for a Democratic candidate in the next Congressional elections.
When asked whom they would vote for “if elections for Congress were held today,” 45% of U.S. adults said they would vote for the Democratic candidate and 30% would vote for the Republican, the Harris Interactive poll shows. In a similar poll in April, 41% supported a Democratic candidate for Congress and 37% supported a Republican.
The telephone survey, conducted Aug. 4-7, 2006, also revealed a gender gap in Congressional support: Of the 1,008 U.S. adults polled, 50% of women favored a Democratic candidate and 28% a Republican. Among men, 40% said they would vote for the Democrat candidate and 33% for the Republican.
When rating the overall job Congress is doing now, 77% of Americans said Congress is doing an “only fair or poor” job, compared with 21% who rated it “excellent or pretty good.” That’s up from May, when 18% of those polled gave Congress a positive rating and 80% gave it a negative rating.
In addition, the poll showed President Bush’s approval rating was unchanged from July: Two-thirds of Americans said he is doing an “only fair or poor” job, while 34% said he is doing an “excellent or pretty good” job as president.
Of course, there are a host of variables that could change these numbers. And polls are see-saws — although Bush and the GOP in recent months faced more “saw” then “sees.” And a key question that future polls will show is: how will the foiled airlines terrorism plot and the subsequent media and television coverage of it and new airport security measures regarding liquid impact these polls? What to watch for: a trend that shows the GOP is succeeding in regaining some of its lost ground on the national security issue.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.