The Question Gallup Forgot To Answer

One might think the sky, or at least the roof of the House is falling if you read the headlines around Gallup's latest political poll. Unfortunately, there's an item Gallup failed to tell us. What has this poll meant in the past?

PRINCETON, NJ -- The latest CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Feb. 28 to March 1, finds the Democrats holding a substantial lead over the Republicans as the party more registered voters currently support in this fall's elections for Congress. More than half of registered voters (53%) favor the Democratic candidate for the U.S. House in their district; only 39% favor the Republican.

This is not the first election since the Republican Party won majority control of the U.S. House of Representatives in 1994 that the Democrats have held a double-digit lead on this important indicator of electoral strength, but it is fairly rare. Throughout much of 1996 and in a couple of polls in 1998, the Democrats enjoyed a 10- to 13-point lead. However, the norm has been for the Republicans to trail the Democrats by only about five points among all registered voters.

My heavens! The Dems had a two digit lead in this important indicator of electoral strength during much of 1996??? Those poor Republicans must have been thrashed!!

Not so:

The Republicans made a net gain of two seats in the Senate

Democrats won a net of two seats from Republicans in the House

And the Dems were up two digits again in 1998? Damn! So much for the Reagan revolution and the Contract for America.

Oh, wait a minute:

The U.S. Senate election, 1998 was a roughly even contest between the Republican and Democratic parties. The balance of the Senate remained unchanged at 55-45 in favor of the Republicans.

It was a major disappointment to the Republican Party, which was expecting to gain seats due to the "six year itch" effect observed in the midterm elections held during the second terms of presidents such as Wilson, F. Roosevelt, Eisenhower and Nixon/Ford. Instead, the GOP lost a handful of seats to the Democratic Party, but retained a narrow majority in the House.

The GOP currently enjoys a 30 seat majority in the House. They were only ahead by 22 seats in 98, lost five and maintained the majority by 12 seats. If one projects based upon today's shocking Gallup poll, based upon past history and where things stand today, one can only conclude it looks pretty good - for the Republicans, that is.

Unfortunately, somehow I don't expect the headlines to read quite that way. But at least we know.

Matt Stoller / MyDD:   Beltway Dorks Miss the Larger Story: Democrats Are Kicking Ass

or not. ; )

Comments

[warrenb]

you are definitely becoming a hard lined Republican and I'm quite sick of it. All your posts now have a sharp lean to the GOP side and because of this....see ya....I ain't comin back. Just DELETED you from my bookmarks forever. I assume you will lose HALF of your readership due to your slant so keep up the garbage. I'm outa here.

[Dan]

hahaha Warren, what HAVE you been reading for however long you were around?

[shonane]

HI. Almost Liberal left here. Dan, I know you say you are independent, and even try to claim the blue dog Democrats. (However, the Blue Dog Dems is where I mainly line up on almost all issues, and you are further right politically than I am I know - I have that fiscal conservative issue that is one of my soap boxes, and that is a biggie of the blue dogs, upset with those irresponsible no fiscal control big spender Republicans.)

So if you aren't a true Repub, then you could easily be called a REPUBLICAN POSER.

About these polls - I have been polled on rare occasions, usually about things like what kind of toilet paper and soap I use, stuff like that, and poll when people show up on my front door wanting me to sign a petition to save the manatees, ban fish nets, sign up for the pregnant pigs constitutional amendment (we had one of those here in Florida and it passed),that kind of issue. But these polls you are referencing, nobody ever calls me, nor do they call anyone I have ever asked.

So who are these people in the polls????And what do they know anyway. More people than not, unfortunately, don't know squat - except what kind of toilet paper they like.

[shonane]

One more thing about those polls. The polls in Florida had the democratic candidate winning the last two presidential elections. Were the polls right?

Maybe just depends on how many Tom Delays are involved.