But now a new poll of specific House battleground districts conducted by Democrat Stan Greenberg and Republican Glen Bolger for NPR suggests that Republicans are well within strking distance of regaining control of the House:
For this poll, Bolger and Greenberg chose the districts where incumbents are considered the most vulnerable, and, in the case of open seats, the ones most likely to switch party control in November. Sixty are currently held by Democrats — many of whom won these seats even when voters in the same district preferred Republican John McCain for president in 2008. The other 10 districts are the flip side — held by Republicans in the House, even though their voters went for Barack Obama in 2008.
These are this year’s swing seats — the political terrain where the battle for control of the House of Representatives will be won or lost. In this battleground, voters are choosing Republicans over Democrats 49 percent to 41 percent.
Another dire indicator for Democrats is that Pres. Obama is unpopular in the battleground districts, where his disapproval rate is 54-40, according to the pollsters.
Separately, here’s yet more evidence that MSNBC’s White House correspondent Chuck Todd is fully in the bag for the GOP this year. He promoted this NPR poll showing Dems in trouble on his aptly named “Rundown” show this morning, while ignoring the PPI poll results showing improvement in Dem chances.
Poll: Democrats on Track to Lose Control of House – Get Used to It Now, ‘Speaker Boehner’
What do you mean, “Get Used to It Now, ‘Speaker Boehner’?” He’s a republican!
Reality check people! Republics approval ratings are at a historic LOW. Exactly who is going to vote for them…the “angry 20%”??
This “Republics poised to take over congress after midterms” deal is a meme being perpetrated with vigor by the media. After all, they love a good conflict. And if they can’t find a real one, they’ll make one up.
Sheesh…get a brain, people.
Nikolai, what I mean is that Democrats should start getting used to the idea of John Boehner being speaker, which will happen if the GOP wins the House in November.
Blaising, You’re right that Republicans are more unpopular than Democrats in general and across the board, but the House is won on a seat by seat basis. Republicans only need to pick up 40 of the 70 vulnerable seats from the Dems to control the House and then elect Boehner as speaker — that is more than doable, it’s almost a cinch.
A cinch really? I suppose you will be back here after the nov elections to apologize for being so short sighted and buying into the media hype.
Derek – I’m here every day, but technically I said “almost a cinch.” I hope I’m wrong but as long as Obama’s popularity stays at 40 percent or under in these districts, there’s a better than even chance they’ll flip from Dem to Gop. Remember that 60 of the seats in the poll were won by a Democrat even though the district voted for McCain in the presidential race.
What is close to a dead cinch is that Republicans will pick up about 35 seats — they’ll win back every seat held by a Southern freshman Dem in a GOP-leaning district, for starters. Whether the GOP can get the additional five seats they need to anoint Speaker Boehner depends on a lot of things, including the status of the Gulf spill in late October.
Derek, I know for a fact that’s one apology that Jon would love to make.
True that! I’m not sure the United States can withstand another bout of Republican “governance.”
This item has been fed to my RSS multiple times per day since the original posting. Please, make it stop!