NDN Final Polling Analysis: Democrats Maintain Historic Advantage

An NDN analysis of the 7 most recent national election polls show Democrats with a striking 12 percentage point average lead in the generic Congressional ballot. This 12 point lead is almost double the 7 point advantage Republicans had in the days before the 1994 election in which they won the Senate, and gained a net of 52 seats in the House.

The two newest polls released by CNN and Fox News show Democrats with 13 and 20 point generic advantages respectively, among likely voters, sternly repudiating any argument that the race has “tightened” in recent days.

Generic Congressional Vote

Beyond the national polls, Republican weakness is best seen in what is happening today in Florida. The President’s last major event of the campaign is in a hard Republican area of the state, Pensacola, where there are no competitive Senate or House races. Republican Gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist even announced yesterday he wouldn’t be able to join the President. So who will be on stage with President Bush today in Florida? Their failed Senate candidate, Katherine Harris, the architect of the electoral debacle in Florida in 2000, and now a national embarrassment for the GOP. What a remarkable ending to this amazing election year.

Bottom line: look hard at the last minute data, and the only responsible conclusions are that Democrats hold a historic generic Congressional advantage. There is no reliable evidence of any late breaking Republican trend. And Tuesday is looking very bad indeed for those in power.

(Be sure to read my 2004 post-election analysis for a baseline on how to understand tomorrow's election results.)