What do Gallup, Zogby, Reuters/Ipsos, YouGov/Polimetrix, and PPP all have in common?
Their latest polls all show a lead for Dems in the Congressional Generic ballot!
That might be news to the pundit class who have all but crowned the Republicans as the new overlords of Capitol Hill and have been breathlessly reporting how Obama and the Dems will lose 60 to 100000 seats this November.
But the people decide not the pundits and they're saying, 'Do I have to choose? Ok, I choose Dems half the time!' - which is good news for us after the barrage of apocalyptic writings the past summer. TPM's Josh Marshall noticed the trend:
Is Something Happening?
Caveats, caveats, caveats. But is something happening for the Democrats in the national generic ballot?
Nate Silver says that the congressional generic may be understating the Democrats' strength. But it's starting to look like that number itself may be shifting. Over the last week, five polling organizations have come out showing the Democrats 1 point ahead of the Republicans. Those are Reuters/Ipsos, Gallup, Zogby, Yougov and PPP. And as you can see from the chart below, it's actually more of a Republican drop than the Democrats rising, though it's a bit of both. And that suggests that it's not just a matter of Dems coming home as the election heats up.
As this home made graph will tell you, Dems lead in 5 out of the latest 10 Generic Congressional Ballots:
TPM PollTracker
Dem Lead
9/19 Gallup 46-45
9/20 Zogby 44-43
9/19 Reuters/Ipsos 46-45
9/14 YouGov/Polimetrix 46-45
9/13 PPP 45-44
Repub Lead
9/19 Rasmussen 38-48
9/16 Marist 45-47
9/16 Fox News 40-46
9/14 CBS/NYT 38-40
9/13 AP/Gfk 43-53
SPREAD THE WORD!!!