Terry JonesTo read much of the mainstream media, you might think that the Democrats will easily win in the upcoming midterm elections to determine the political makeup of Congress during the last two years of President Donald Trump’s final term in office. But it’s not that simple, as the latest I&I/TIPP Poll shows.
The online national poll, taken by 1,328 registered voters from Sept. 29 through Oct. 1, shows the race remains pretty tight, despite a Democratic lead. The poll has a margin of error of +/-2.8 percentage points.
To get at overall preference, the I&I/TIPP Poll asked: “Which party do you prefer to control Congress after this year’s midterm election?”
The answer: 46% of voters preferred Democrats, 42% preferred Republicans, and 12% weren’t sure. That last number is of interest. It’s the potential swing vote, which will almost certainly decide who wins.
The Democrats are the most certain: 96% say they want their own party back in office, while just 2% said they’d prefer the Republicans, and only 2% were unsure. Republicans preferred a GOP-led legislature by 90%, while 5% backed the Dems and an equal share, 5%, remained unsure.
Meanwhile, independents preferred Democrats over the GOP by 44% to 25%, a lopsided margin. But the picture changes a bit when you get to the “unsure” tally: 31%. That latter number is the swing vote that will almost surely decide who wins and who loses this election. They’re still on the fence.
But if you ask, specifically, which party voters would want to control both chambers of Congress, the selection gets even tighter. While 40% say they would like Dems to control both, 39% say Republicans, an amount well within the margin of error of the poll.
Just 7% say they’d like split control and an equal 7% say they have no preference. That shows the vast majority of voters seek a clear, not muddled, direction from the next Congress. Either work with Trump, or work against him.
I&I/TIPP also asked the following: “When deciding how to vote for Congress, which matters more to you?” Those participating in the poll were given five possible responses: “Candidate matters more,” “Party matters more,” “Both equally,” “Neither,” and “Not sure.”
Americans overwhelmingly chose the third answer, “both equally,” over the others. That answer received 46% support, versus just 24% preferring the candidate and only 21% preferring the political party. Only 4% said neither, while 5% were unsure.
But as the chart shows, among Democrats, 50% support both party and candidate, while 21% say the candidate and 23% the party. For GOP voters, support for both party and candidate fell to 43%, while candidate support rose to 25% and party support to 27%.
Independents, as is often the case, came in somewhere near the middle: 46% said both party and candidate, while candidate was slightly higher at 28%. But they did differ on voting for a party: Just 10% said they would weigh a candidate’s party more, a double-digit decline from both the levels of both Dems and the GOP.
That latter point should not be anything stunning, given that “independents” are, by definition, mostly made up of non-party affiliated voters who eschew belonging to either of the two major parties in favor of independent decision-making.
So what has voters, including the swing-vote independents, most worried?
The answer is plenty, as it turns out, but one thing stands out: The economy. By nearly 3-to-1, voters overall cited “economy and cost of living” (40%) over any other factor, including “Social Security and Medicare” (14%), “Healthcare” and “Immigration and border security,” both at 8%, “Election integrity and democracy” and “Taxes and government spending,” both at 6%.
Statistically speaking, each possible answer considered individually shows the two main political parties and independents largely agreed in their concerns (see chart, above). However, they sharply disagree on what to do about those issues, and which party and which candidates have the right policy prescriptions to deal with them.
But they also agree on something else: They don’t want a Trump rubber-stamp Congress. They want a Congress that will counterbalance the aggressive, fast-moving Trump administration, which has seemed at times to run circles around both major parties in Congress.
The I&I/TIPP Poll queried voters: “Which comes closer to your view of what you want from Congress after the November election?”
They were given two possible answers: Check Trump’s policies, or support them. The biggest answer to the question, with 49% overall support: Check Trump’s policies. Support Trump’s policies was well below at 30%, while “neither” garnered just 14% and 8% weren’t sure.
So, overall, voters want a Congress that stands up to the president, in keeping with the Constitution’s idea of balance between the presidency, the legislature, and the judiciary. Even 34% of Republicans want Trump’s policies to be checked by Congress.
But it’s important to note that with Democrats showing a slim lead, on average polls regularly overstate Democrat support among voters, and understate Republican support.
Republicans get this, and are focusing on keeping control of the Senate as a stopgap against a possible Democratic takeover of the House of Representatives, where Democrats have promised to impeach Trump.
Republican PACS are retreating from their scatter-shot approach to contributions across the country. “They are pulling back from a handful of battleground House races and the North Carolina and Georgia Senate races, instead targeting key Senate races in Texas, Ohio, Michigan, Iowa, and Alaska,” the Daily Signal reported on Sunday.
On average, since 2016, polls have shown an average 3.7 percentage point error rate in the final 21 days before election. If so, says CNN election and polling guru Harry Enten: “Siren warning for Democrats … if we get this average error rate … This is what we’re talking about … (in the Senate) Republicans would get 52 seats, Democrats would get 48.”
Turnout will be key. To that end, Trump has hit the hustings, pushing for high GOP turnout and promising the Iran war, which some Republicans oppose, will end “very quickly.” He also highlighted his economic achievements, including “record employment, incomes, exports, and stock market performance, alongside historically low poverty rates.”
Will Trump’s track record convince voters to keep the current status quo of GOP control of Congress? That remains to be seen. Americans are obviously worried about the economy and inflation. Even so, as the I&I/TIPP Poll suggests, the tussle for control perhaps is much closer than the media and polls would lead you to believe.
I&I/TIPP publishes timely, unique, and informative data each month on topics of public interest. TIPP’s reputation for polling excellence comes from being the most accurate pollster for the past six presidential elections.
Terry Jones is an editor of Issues & Insights. His four decades of journalism experience include serving as national issues editor, economics editor, and editorial page editor for Investor’s Business Daily.
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