Generic Congressional Ballot Is All Tied Up

With less than a month to Election Day, the Generic Congressional Ballot is now dead even.

The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone and online survey finds that 45% of Likely U.S. Voters would choose the Democratic candidate if the elections for Congress were held today. Another 45% would opt for the Republican. Three percent (3%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Last week, 47% of voters said they would choose the Democratic candidate while 42% said they would choose the Republican. It is unclear whether the sudden jump to a tie vote is a reflection of the anger surrounding the Kavanaugh confirmation process, but we will continue to watch this in the weeks ahead.

Since Rasmussen Reports began the weekly surveying in early May, Democrats have led every week but one in mid-August when the two parties were tied at 44% apiece. Their lead has ranged from one to eight points. 

At this time in 2014, prior to the last non-presidential year congressional elections, Democrats held a 41% to 39% lead. But Republicans went on to gain control of the Senate in those elections and increase their majority in the House of Representatives.

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

Rasmussen Reports invites you to be a part of our first-ever Citizen-Sourced National Midterm Election Polling Project. Learn more about how you can contribute.  

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The survey of 2,500 Likely Voters was conducted on September 30-October 4, 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.

Eighty-four percent (84%) of Republicans prefer the candidate from their party, while 83% of Democrats opt for their party's candidate. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, Republicans post a narrow 39% to 38% lead. But 22% of unaffiliated voters either prefer someone else or are undecided. 

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.

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. 

Sixty-seven percent (67%) think voters should be required to show photo identification such as a driver’s license before being allowed to vote, and 53% do not think laws requiring photo identification at the polls are discriminatory. 

It’s a done deal: Judge Brett Kavanaugh is now a member of the U.S. Supreme Court, and voters tend to think that’s okay.

But most voters disapprove of how the U.S. Senate has conducted Kavanaugh's confirmation process and say he has been investigated enough. 

Given the emotions surrounding the Kavanaugh nomination, it’s no surprise that 65% of voters think there is a greater danger of political violence now compared to past years.

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