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Democrats Regain Lead on Generic Congressional Ballot

After a neck-and-neck race last week, Democrats have once again jumped into the lead on the Rasmussen Reports Generic Congressional Ballot.

The latest telephone and online survey finds that 46% of Likely U.S. Voters would choose the Democratic candidate if the elections for Congress were held today. Another 41% would now opt for the Republican. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

A week ago, the two parties were dead even for the first time since May. The Democrats regained their lead in early June and have maintained it nearly every week since then. In early July, Democrats led by eight, their largest lead since January.

Rasmussen Reports is updating the Generic Congressional Ballot findings weekly on Wednesdays at 8:30 a.m. Eastern until the midterm elections in November.

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The survey of 2,500 Likely Voters was conducted on August 19-23, 2018 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

In the U.S. House of Representatives, all 435 seats are on November’s ballot. Republicans now have a 47-seat majority in the House, so Democrats would need to take away 24 GOP seats to gain control. The big problem is that all but about 50 of the seats are shoo-ins for the party that now holds them.

In the U.S. Senate, 32 seats are up for grabs this November, but 23 of them are now held by Democrats. So Democrats need to hold all 23 of those and pick up two of the Republican seats to win control of the Senate. 

Just 21% of voters now think President Trump will be impeached before serving his full term in office, a number that has been on the decline since last December. Only 16% believe focusing on the president’s possible impeachment is a better campaign strategy for Democratic congressional candidates than focusing on policy areas where they disagree with Trump.

Former Vice President Joe Biden remains the clear favorite among Democrats to be their presidential nominee in 2020. Bernie Sanders, the Vermont senator who challenged Hillary Clinton for the party’s nomination in 2016, is a fading second.

Voters agree with Trump that America should come first on the world stage but don't think the Democratic party's next presidential nominee—whoever it may be—is likely to agree.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

The survey of 2,500 Likely Voters was conducted on August 19-23, 2018 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

Rasmussen Reports is a media company specializing in the collection, publication and distribution of public opinion information.

We conduct public opinion polls on a variety of topics to inform our audience on events in the news and other topics of interest. To ensure editorial control and independence, we pay for the polls ourselves and generate revenue through the sale of subscriptions, sponsorships, and advertising. Nightly polling on politics, business and lifestyle topics provides the content to update the Rasmussen Reports web site many times each day. If it's in the news, it's in our polls. Additionally, the data drives a daily update newsletter and various media outlets across the country.

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To learn more about our methodology, click here.