Survey Shows House Dems Maintain "Nearly Landslide Leads" Heading Into 08 Election

[applegrove]

Survey Shows House Dems Maintain "Nearly Landslide Leads" Heading Into 08 Election
Huffington Post, July 31, 2007


"Despite growing disapproval of Congress, Democratic House candidates -- both incumbents and challengers -- are steadily gaining ground for a 2008 election likely to be a repeat of 2006, according to two surveys (here and here) by Democracy Corps.

The surveys dispute the hardening conventional wisdom that the failure of Democrats to force the start of withdrawal from Iraq has turned voters against both parties. The notion that the public sees Democrats and Republicans as "equal offenders...completely misreads the current moment," according to Democracy Corps.

Instead, the authors of an accompanying memo -- Stan Greenberg, James Carville and Ana Iparraguirre -- contend that "Democrats are maintaining stable and nearly landslide leads in both the race for President as measured by generic performance (51-41) and the named ballot for Congress (52-42 percent)."

In a targeted survey of the 70 congressional districts most likely to be competitive in 2008 (half with Democratic incumbents, the other half with Republicans in office), Democracy Corps found that Democratic incumbents hold a solid 52-40 lead on average. In contrast, the Republicans are in trouble: when voters are asked whom they would choose between the named GOP incumbent and an unnamed (generic) Democrat, the Republicans are behind on average 44-49.

Posted by Thomas B. Edsall .... END"

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2007/07/31/surveys-show-house-dems-m_n_58592.html

[AX10]

1. K & R!

[Geoff R. Casavant]

2. I'm trying to recall the Congressional numbers from 2004.

As I recall, in 2000 the Democrats lost only a little, if at all.

Then there were the big losses of 2002, when it seemed everyone with an R after his name just had to mention Bush and they got elected.

And I'll never forget 2006.

But what were the numbers like in 2004? I seem to recall the Repubs didn't make any significant gains at all.

[Kolesar]

3. Dems had leads like 52-42 for congressional races before the last election

The Democrats "generally" have leads over to GOPs. I don't know how it has been that the GOPs won in 2000 and 2004. Year 2002 I can understand--9/11 and war paranoia.

[bluestateguy]

4. The corporate media doesn't understand the meaning behind polls showing disapproval of Congress

The reason a majority, a big majority, disapproves of Congress is because the Democrats are not standing up to Bush enough. Approval of Congress is never all that high--usually 35%-40%. The reason for the unusually low numbers is because Democratic voters are angry that this Congress has been rather blase in standing up to the Administration. They gave Baby Bush his war money. I'd answer "disapprove" too if a pollster called me up, but vote for a Republican to Congress? Please. I suspect many others are saying they disapprove too because of Republican stalling tactics, filibusters and obstructionism. There is simply no groundswell for a Republican takeover of Congress.