Posted by Mark Silva at 9:30 am CDT
The same Gallup Poll that finds President Bush gaining some ground in public approval recently – buoyed by support for his handling of terrorism – finds Republican candidates gaining some generic ground in their contests with Democrats this fall.
In the periodic matchup of unnamed Democrats versus unnamed Republicans in opinion polling, Democrats have held a substantial advantage heading into fall elections in which the two parties are fighting for control of the U.S. House and Senate. But the latest Gallup survey finds that the Democratic advantage has narrowed to a statistical tie.
Asked, if the congressional elections were held today, whether they would vote for a Democrat or Republican, 47 percent of those surveyed by Gallup said a Democrat and 45 percent said a Republican. The results of that Aug. 18-20 survey are much closer than a 9-point advantage that Democrats held in such a matchup earlier this month and the 10-point lead that Democrats held in three surveys run in July and August.
“It also represents the Republicans’ best performance in a single poll during this election cycle on this important measure of electoral strength,” according to the Gallup report of the poll published by USA Today.
The same poll had found the president’s approval rating increasing to 42 percent, the first time that he had surpassed 40 percent since February.
Both Bush’s gain, and the narrowing of the Democratic advantage in congressional contests “may be tied to a min-surge in public approval of the way Bush is handling terorism in the wake of recent news about a foiled terrorist plot to blow up several airplanes headed for the United States,” Gallup reports.
The approval rating for the president’s handling of terrorism — typically his best issue in polls — increased by eight percentage points since July – while his ratings on the range of other issues such as his handling of the economy remained unchanged.
In the field of polling, with possible margins of error, Gallup cautions that the Democratic loss of 3 percentage points in support from its previous survey on Aug. 7-10 and the Republican gain of 4 points from that previous poll are not statistically significant. But the overall spread, when compared with earlier polls this summer, is significant.
The survey was based on 1,001 interviews of adults conducted Aug. 18-20, and the results carry a possible margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
