This is pretty hysterical. On Sunday, three different polls – Pew Research Center, USA Today/Gallup, and Washington Post/ABC News – were released showing evidence that the preference for Republicans in the upcoming midterm elections has been surging in the past couple of weeks, with the gap favoring Democrats now down to between four and seven percentage points. However, Newsweek released the results of its own poll Saturday, and the magazine actually sees the Democrats expanding their lead. I kid you not (emphasis mine throughout):
The new poll finds support for Republicans (and for President Bush) receding. For example, 53 percent of Americans want the Democrats to win enough seats to take control of one or both houses of Congress in the midterm elections on Tuesday. Those results are close to early October levels, while less than a third of Americans (32 percent) want Republicans to retain control. If the elections were held today, 54 percent of likely voters say they would support the Democratic candidate in their district versus 38 percent who would vote for the Republican-a 16-point edge for the Democrats.
Sixteen points, huh? Let’s see: Pew’s at four, WaPo/ABC News is at six, and USA Today/Gallup calls it seven. Fascinating, huh? Of course, maybe this is a function of Newsweek having called this race weeks ago, and not wanting to capitulate now. For instance, here are the articles and headlines for some of their previous polls:
NEWSWEEK Poll: GOP in Meltdown - Oct 7, 2006
NEWSWEEK Poll: GOP Losing Its Base - Oct 21, 2006
Unlike the other three polls, Newsweek also has President Bush’s approval declining: “Meanwhile, the President’s approval has fallen back to 35 percent, after a slow but steady rise from 33 percent at the beginning of October to 37 percent in the NEWSWEEK poll last week.”
The article cheerily concluded: “Expect to hear lots in the news and on the Web during the next few days about the GOP’s ‘72-hour campaign,’ the party’s hyper-organized, multimillion-dollar get-out-the-vote effort that uses mailing lists, consumer marketing information and high-tech data crunching to find Republicans and roust them to the polls. But with Democrats making their own effort, Republican turnout may not be enough to turn back the tide.”
