With Republicans facing a near-record number of retirements and the Democratic campaign committees holding roughly a $30 million advantage in cash-on-hand over the Republican campaign committees when debts and obligations are taken into account, you might think that things couldn't get worse for the GOP in its efforts to stem their losses in congressional elections this fall. But take a look at the latest generic congressional ballot numbers from Gallup:

The Republican Party last carried a majority of seats in the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004, and Gallup polling conducted in the days preceding the election that year found 47% of likely voters planning to vote for the Republican candidate in their district. In 2006, with their final pre-election support at 44% of likely voters, the Republicans lost control of Congress. Today, even fewer likely voters say they will vote Republican.

According to the latest USA Today/Gallup poll, conducted Feb. 8-10, 2008, only 41% of adults likely to vote this November say they would support the Republican candidate running in their congressional district. Fifty-five percent say they would vote for the Democratic candidate.

Note that the Gallup generic congressional ballot question has been close to the mark in the past, most recently correctly pegging the Democrats' 7-point victory in the nationwide popular vote for the House of Representatives in November 2006. That, of course, is not to say that the Democrats are destined to win by an even larger margin in 2008 than they did in 2006. The Democrats' lead in 2006 according to Gallup went from nothing in September to 23 points in October to 7 points in 2006, so there's clearly room for fluctuation. Perhaps the poll even finds more movement than actually exists. That said, with almost all signs still pointing downward for congressional Republicans, this poll does not by any means seem out of whack.

Over the weekend Rasmussen Reports released its latest congressional ballot numbers, which show the Democrats maintaining their substantial advantage over the Republicans.

Date	Democrats	Republicans	Net
10/4/07	48	36	D+12
9/4/07	50	32	D+18
8/1/07	47	37	D+10
7/17/07	46	37	D+9
6/21/07	46	34	D+12
5/31/07	45	38	D+7
5/3/07	47	36	D+11
4/10/07	45	35	D+10
3-Month Ave.	48.3	35.0	D+13.3
7-Month Ave.	46.8	35.6	D+10.2

This polling bodes poorly for the GOP not only in the short term but also in the long term. Not only have the Democrats held a double-digit lead for three state months and the Republicans have failed to even come close to 40 percent support in the last seven months, but the Republicans are getting trounced by an even wider amrgin among younger voters, who will be sticking around in the electorate for a few decades to come. Specifically, Rasmussen finds that the Democrats' lead among voters age 29 and under is a remarkable 62 percent to 30 percent.

This last number comes on the heels of new polling from The Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, which showed that young white Evangelicals, a group that traditionally has been overwhelmingly supportive of the Republican Party (giving Bush an 87 percent Republican in 2002, when only 80 percent of Evangelicals age 30 and above approved of him, and a 70 percent approval as recently as 2005), now are less likely to approve of the President than disapproving, with just 45 percent giving him good marks. What's more, just 40 percent of this group now self-identifies as Republican, compared with 55 percent in 2005.

Update [2007-10-8 20:9:23 by Jonathan Singer]: The Pew numbers have been fixed.

These numbers from Rasmussen Reports (via Markos) are truly remarkable:

Date	Democrats	Republicans	Net
9/4/07	50	32	D+18
8/1/07	47	37	D+10
7/17/07	46	37	D+9
6/21/07	46	34	D+12
5/31/07	45	38	D+7
5/3/07	47	36	D+11
4/10/07	45	35	D+10
Average	46.6	35.6	D+10

There are a number of points of concern out of these numbers for the Republicans, notwithstanding the fact that the poll was taken on a single day and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The fact that at no point this year has the GOP done better than 38 percent in this polling bodes remarkably poorly for the party -- no doubt a party receiving support from less than two in five voters has no shot at gaining a majority of seats, or even holding on to all of it's still sizable minority of seats. What's more, that the Democrats' lead has always been 7 percentage points or more indicates that although the new majority isn't terribly popular, it is still preferred to the party of George W. Bush and Tom DeLay.

the political environment might still change before election day, so it would be wrong to express too much jubilation at these numbers. That said, they point to the very real fact that the Democrats at least have an opportunity to build an even larger majority this cycle -- perhaps even a truly working progressive majority.

Update [2007-9-6 17:18:23 by Jonathan Singer]: I've added in an average of the last seven polls. Although the margins have shifted from month to month, probably as a result of statistical noise, the overall appearance of the poll has been remarkably stable, with the Democrats varying within 2.5 points above or below 47.5 percent and the Republicans varying within 3 points above or below 35 percent.

It was a little over a year ago that my concerns over the Republican lean of Rasmussen Reports led me to generally refrain from posting their polls on this site. To get an idea of the impetus of this move, take a look at this graph put together by Professor Charles Franklin detailing how although Rasmussen's polling tended to that point to track with other national polling in trends, in actual numbers Rasmussen yielded a Bush approval rating fully 3-4 points higher than that of the composite of all other national polling.

Fast forward to this year. Professor Franklin's best estimate of President Bush's approval rating from the available national polling pegs the number at 29.1 percent, down about 5 points over the last two months. But where does Rasmussen put the President? According to the pollster's latest numbers, 37 percent of "likely voters" approve of the job the President is doing -- a number significantly higher than that of the consensus among almost every other national pollster. What's worse, Rasmussen does not pick up the trend viewed by other pollsters, with the President's approval rating down just 2 points from where it was across the month of April.

One might argue that the difference in numbers lies not in a Republican bias but rather in the fact that Rasmussen is polling likely voters rather than registered voters or adults. However, that does not account for the fact that Rasmussen is intentionally skewing its numbers to make Congress' approval rating appear to be much lower than that of the President by asking an unbalanced four-point question (excellent, good, fair, poor) for Congress and a balanced four-point question (strongly approve, somewhat approve, somewhat disapprove, strongly disapprove) of the President. (Professor Franklin explains elsewhere that the unbalanced question can yield lower numbers than the more balanced one.

Yet despite all of this (or perhaps in spite of it), I'd like to pass on a new poll from Rasmussen gauging likely voters' views towards the 2008 elections -- specifically the generic congressional ballot question. Even with the lean of Rasmussen Reports, Democrats still hold a 12-point lead on the question of whether likely voters would prefer to elect a Democratic or Republican Congress next fall. And all of this comes even while Rasmussen inflates the support for third party candidates, pegging their support at 6 points -- fully 70 percent higher than it has been over the last two decades or so and more than twice what it's been in either of the last two elections. If the Democrats hold this large of a lead even with all of that, it seems to me that they are in an outstanding position more than a quarter of the way to the 2008 elections.

Back in September, Chris offered some real spot-on analysis of likely voter generic congressional ballot polling, about half of which showed the Democrats' lead shrinking to a near tie and the other half of which showed the Democrats up by a double-digit margin. He wrote,

These polls were all taken at about the exact same time. Differences of this sort cannot be chalked up simply to random error. I have never seen anything like this. One group shows a Democratic lead of 11-14%. The other group shows a Democratic lead of 0-3%. This is not simply a case of a few outlying polls. These groups of polling outfits are clearly polling two different countries altogether. Both countries exist. The issue is simply which country to we live in, and which country will show up when it comes time to vote.

Today we are again seeing a similarly quizzical situation, with about half of likely voter generic polls showing the Democrats up by a margin that would undoubtedly demoralize and defeat the Republicans while the other half of the surveys shows the Democrats holding a smaller, though still statistically significant lead. These are the last six generic congressional ballot polls split by their conclusions about the electorate (all data from Polling Report).

Democratic Landslide

CNN (Fri-Sun): Democrats 58 - Republicans 38
Newsweek (Thu-Fri): Democrats 54 - Republicans 38
Time (Wed-Fri): Democrats 55 - Republicans 40

Narrower Democratic Lead

USA Today/Gallup (Thu-Sun): Democrats 51 - Republicans 44
ABC News/Washington Post (Wed-Sat): Democrats 51 - 45
Pew (Wed-Sat): Democrats 47 - Republicans 44

Within each of these sets of polling, variation is limited, with with the Republican share varying by 1-2 points and the Democratic share varying by 4 points among polls. However, the two subsets are like night and day, with one capturing an environment of narrow, though noticeable victory and the other finding an electorate ready for sweeping change.

Which of these electorates shows up tomorrow is not yet clear. It might not even be written yet, as the activism and voter contacts over the next 30 to 40 hours can still push turnout in one direction or the other. (As an aside, the numbers I am seeing show that more than 10 percent of the electorate could be "non-likely" voters -- those who in the past have seldom or never voted and who did not even participate in this year's primaries. How and if pollsters catch these folks, who could swing the election in one direction or the other, is beyond me.) In either case, optimism and hope should and must not be lost. While the polling is no longer unanimous in its conclusion that the Democrats are riding a wave of historical proportions, it is unanimous in its finding that the Democrats hold a noticeable lead within the electorate as a whole and the more limited group of those likeliest to vote. So as we have all written in almost every recent post, go out and volunteer. Get in contact with voters and make a difference.

Update: Final Fox poll has Democrats ahead 49-36 among likely voters. That is actually an uptick for Democrats from the previous Fox poll. The only remaining places I would expect polls from now are Hotline, Harris, Zogby and AP. I have no idea if any of these firms have polls in the field, but those would be the only sources I would expect new polls from at this point. So far, more polls (four out of seven in November) indicate that the campaign is not getting closer than indicate it is getting closer. The sun is starting to shine again.

Despite asking some ridiculously slanted questions ("It's just crazy to announce to the enemy when you are going to stop fighting and leave the country" vs. "It's smart to let the Iraqis know a certain date when they need to be able to stand on their own"), the latest Opinion Dynamics poll (.pdf) commissioned by Fox News brings forward some fairly interesting information on the state of the race for Congress this year.

The Opinion Dynamics survey, which was in the field on Tuesday and Wednesday during the thick of administration speeches on the Iraq War and terrorism, found no bump, whatsoever, in the salience of terrorism as an issue this year. In fact, just 12 percent of voters believe it "will be the most important in deciding [their] vote for Congress this fall," behind the economy and Iraq, and only one point ahead of healthcare. These numbers seriously call into question the effectiveness of Karl Rove's strategy to wage this midterm campaign almost solely on security issues.

Other data from the poll also show that the Republican effort to paint Democrats as devoid of ideas and solely out to get the President has largely fallen on deaf ears. By a 47 percent to 30 percent margin, voters believe that should Democrats gain control of congress they will push new ideas rather than just trying to impeach President Bush. The margin among independent voters is even larger, 48 percent to 23 percent.

According to the poll, President Bush's approval rating sits at 38 percent with 56 percent disapproving, and on the generic congressional ballot question, Democrats hold a 16-point advantage, 48 percent to 32 percent. It's interesting to note that, with the exception of two outlying polls (one from Gallup, the other from CNN), Republicans have been unable to top 42 percent in any generic congressional ballot survey since February, and even with those outlying polls they haven't gotten over 45 percent since pollsters began widely asking the question last fall (source: PollingReport.com). While these numbers do necessarily not spell imminent doom for the Republicans' chances this fall, they do indicate that the Republicans have a ton of work cut out for them if they intend to hold even one chamber of Congress next year.

For those who remain skeptical about the Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll released yesterday showing the Democrats maintaining a record 18-point generic congressional ballot lead, an Ipsos poll commissioned by the Associated Press seems to provide some confirmation.

On the generic question of whether voters would back the Democrat or Republican, 55 percent of registered voters chose the Democrat and 37 percent chose the Republican, a slight increase for Democrats from last month.

According to the AP/Ipsos poll, President Bush's approval rating has dropped all of the way down to it's May low of 33 percent. More worrisome for the White House and Republicans in Congress, close to one in five voters (19 percent) who supported Bush's reelection bid in 2004 plan to vote Democratic this fall. These numbers significantly undercut the internal Republican polling and memo obtained yesterday by US News (.pdf) which showed Republican voters excited to vote and prepared to support GOP candidates by an 84 percent to 6 percent margin.

As the Democrats have maintained a robust lead in generic congressional balloting for several months, some have questioned whether strong national numbers could actually be parlayed into wins in individual races this fall. But polls released yesterday from two Republican-leaning districts in which a GOP incumbent is facing a credible Democratic challenger indicate that the Democrats are indeed competitive in the campaigns they need to win in order to retake the House this fall.

Public Policy Polling (.pdf) -- NC-11

Likely Voters

Charles Taylor (R) -- 42
Heath Shuler (D) -- 46

With Leaners

Charles Taylor (R) -- 45
Heath Shuler (D) -- 51

Momentum Analysis (D) -- OH-2

Jean Schmidt (R) -- 44
Victoria Wulsin (D) -- 44

In 2004, George W. Bush pulled in 57 percent of the vote in North Carolina's 11th district and 64 percent of the vote in Ohio's second congressional district, so by no means was it a foregone conclusion that these races would be so competitive at this point. In fact, the rankings released yesterday by the Cook Political Report (.pdf) do not even list OH-2 as potentially competitive.

While it is true that neither Shuler nor Wulsin are above 50 percent without leaners and that at times when polling has shown Democrats leading but under 50 percent the Democrat has not always gone on to win (think Francine Busby), the Democrats have a real shot at winning in both of these Republican districts.

If enough of these GOP-held districts present the Democrats with an opportunity for a pick-up, the Democrats need not win each one, but only a healthy percentage in order to retake the House in November. And I believe now that the Democrats are fast approaching the threshold at which there are enough Republican seats in play to win.