Politico Monday evening ran the following headline:
Tidal Wave? 10-point Poll Edge for GOP
Inside, the news wasn't much better for the liberal press:
The Gallup poll, coming at the end of a brutal August for Democrats and President Barack Obama, reinforces the rapidly forming prevailing view that the horizon is as bleak for Democrats as it ever has been.
The headline of the Gallup poll in question was also sure to elicit gasps in newsrooms from coast to coast:
GOP Takes Unprecedented 10-Point Lead on Generic Ballot
So will the opening paragraph:
Republicans lead by 51% to 41% among registered voters in Gallup weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. The 10-percentage-point lead is the GOP's largest so far this year and is its largest in Gallup's history of tracking the midterm generic ballot for Congress.
The rest of the article was full of other nuggets destined to ruin a lot of liberal media member's days tomorrow:
The Republican leads of 6, 7, and 10 points this month are all higher than any previous midterm Republican advantage in Gallup's history of tracking the generic ballot, which dates to 1942. Prior to this year, the highest such gap was five points, measured in June 2002 and July 1994. Elections in both of these years resulted in significant Republican gains in House seats.
The news continued to worsen for left-leaning journalists:
Republicans are now twice as likely as Democrats to be "very" enthusiastic about voting, and now hold -- by one point -- the largest such advantage of the year. [...]
The last Gallup weekly generic ballot average before Labor Day underscores the fast-evolving conventional wisdom that the GOP is poised to make significant gains in this fall's midterm congressional elections. Gallup's generic ballot has historically proven an excellent predictor of the national vote for Congress, and the national vote in turn is an excellent predictor of House seats won and lost. Republicans' presumed turnout advantage, combined with their current 10-point registered-voter lead, suggests the potential for a major "wave" election in which the Republicans gain a large number of seats from the Democrats and in the process take back control of the House.
This poll was released late in the afternoon Monday. As such, there isn't a huge amount of reporting on it yet.
How will this stunner get covered in the next 24 hours?
Stay tuned.
