GOP Boosted By College Educated Independents, Women Returning
With less than three weeks to go before Election Day, Republicans hold an expanding 5-point lead over Democrats when voters are asked who they intend to vote for in their congressional districts this November. Republicans held historic leads in the Generic Ballot until the summer, when the key metric tightened.
Support for Republicans on the Generic Ballot has risen to 48.4%, up from 42.5% in the pre-Labor Day survey conducted just before September. Meanwhile, Democrats ticked only marginally higher from 41.2% to 43.3%.
“That 5-point lead has the potential to grow as the late-deciders are demographically friendly to the Republican Party, largely disapprove of the president, and the issues important to their vote are not favorable to Democrats,” Big Data Poll Director Rich Baris said. “The tightening in the summer was more a result of these voters softening their support for the Republican candidate in their district and less about mind-changing over issues.”
“Educated independents and women who had indicated that they would support Republican candidates for the U.S. House all year long before the summer, are now simply reaffirming their earlier preference.”
Likely midterm voters are extremely negative about the direction of the country, another key metric strongly tied to an incumbent party’s midterm performance. In fact, the -46.5 spread is the second worst finding ever gauged by the Public Polling Project. Only 22.3% say the country is headed in the right direction, down from 24.8% in August, while 68.8% feel the country is on the wrong track, up from 64.7%.
While the third key metric improved for the incumbent party, it remains historically negative. Only 41.7% approve of the job President Joe Biden is doing in office, to include just 19.7% who strongly approve. A solid majority, 56.4%, disapprove and more than 4 in 10 (44.0%) strongly disapprove, resulting in a negative intensity index of -24.3.
Men back Republicans 53.4% to 39.3%, while Democrats barely lead with women, 47.1% to 43.7%. Independents also prefer Republicans 47.3% to 31.1%, and among those “certain” to vote, Republicans lead 51.1% to 44.5%. The GOP turnout edge is further substantiated by their lead among those “extremely” enthusiastic to vote, 53.3% to 44.0%.
The Public Polling Project is the first ever successful periodic nationwide survey funded solely by contributions from the public. It interviews at least 2,000 registered voters each survey about their views on the direction of the country, the U.S. administration, debated issues, current and expected economic sentiment, as well as other prescient topics. The Election 2020 Public Polling Project conducted by Big Data Poll for Inside The Numbers with The People’s Pundit was recognized by The New York Post for delivering more accurate results with “above-average transparency”.
The Public Polling Project October 2022 National Survey conducted by Big Data Poll interviewed 2,708 registered likely voters nationally via online survey (70%) and Peer-to-Peer SMS (30%) from October 17 to October 19, 2022. The overall survey sampling error is ± 2.1% at a 95% confidence interval. Results are weighted to represent national voter file demographics to include gender, age, race and ethnicity, education, geography and region. It’s important to note that sampling errors for subgroups are higher. Learn more about survey design and methodology below. The proprietary likely voter model is determined by both self-reported likelihood and vote history. Full Crosstabs can be viewed on MarketSight and a detailed methodology statement can be found HERE.
