Does The GOP Have An Electoral Advantage In 2014 ?

The political pundits still insist that the Republicans have an advantage in this election and will retain control of the House of Representatives -- and many of them base that on President Obama's approval ratings (which is lower right now than it has been). I'm still not buying it. While the president's job approval rating is a bit upside down (with 42% approving and 51% disapproving), those numbers are astronomical when compared to the very dismal numbers for Congress (15% approving and 77% disapproving).

Add to this the fact that 73% of the public says their vote in this election will not be a vote against the president, while only 27% say their vote will be because they oppose the president (about the number of teabagger Republicans who have always opposed President Obama -- even when his approval numbers were high). Democrats were never going to get any votes from that 27%.

The truth is that this election is not a referendum on the president. That happened in 2012, and he was re-elected by a large margin. This election is a referendum on the dysfunctional Congress -- one of the most unpopular elective bodies this country has ever had. The voters are angry with Congress for refusing to compromise for the good of the country -- and that has put them in an anti-incumbent mood.

But while voters are angry with Congress as a whole, they are more angry with Republicans than Democrats -- because it has been obvious that it is the congressional Republicans that have refused to compromise the most. And since there are more Republicans than Democrats in Congress right now, it just makes sense that they will bear the brunt of this anti-incumbent feeling of the voters.

And the charts below add credence to my feeling that Republicans may not do as well in the coming election as predicted by the pundits. The Democrats have a 12 point higher approval rating than the Republicans in Congress, and Democrats have an 8 point higher enthusiasm about voting for their candidates than the GOP voters have. In addition, voters say the Democrats more closely reflect their personal values (by 5 points), care more about the needs of people like them (by 12 points), and better understand the economic needs of the American people (by 13 points). And finally, two-thirds of the voters say they are willing to look for a candidate other than their current representative.

NOTE -- All of these charts were made from information contained in a new Washington Post / ABC News Poll, taken between September 4th and 7th of a random national sample of 1,001 adults and has a margin of error of 3.5 points.