If you've listened to the talking heads on cable news for the past few months, you will have heard that a "blue wave" is coming with the elections in November -- a wave that will flip the House of Representatives to Democratic control, and possibly do the same to the Senate.
But the public is not convinced of that -- at least not yet. Only 42% of adults (and 46% of registered voters) believe it is likely the Democrats will win control of the U.S. House. And the numbers are slightly worse about with Senate -- with 40% of adults (and 42% of registered voters) believing Democrats will win control of the Senate. Note that the number does not reach 50% for either the House or the Senate.
I'm a Democrat, and you might think these numbers would disappoint me. That would be wrong. Although I believe that "blue wave" could be real, it won't hurt at all for voters to think that could be in doubt. If they believed it was a foregone conclusion, too many of them might stay at home on election day. That would be disastrous. Democrats need for people to believe that their vote is badly needed (and it really is). Democrats can only prevail if there is a large voter turnout.
The charts above use information in a recent Economist / YouGov Poll -- done between May 20th and 22nd of a national sample of 1,500 adults (including 1,263 registered voters). The margin of error for adults is 3 points, and for registered voters is 2.9 points.
I bet that some of the public still remember what the talking heads on cable news told us over and over again right before the 2016 U.S. presidential election. You know, about who was going to win. This probably didn't help their credibility much.
ReplyDelete