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Democrats Hold Lead on Generic Congressional Ballot

Democrats maintain their lead over Republicans on this week's 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. Forty-two percent (42%) would opt for the Republican. Four percent (4%) prefer some other candidate, and eight percent (8%) are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

Two weeks ago, the two parties were dead even for the first time since May before Democrats jumped back out to a five-point lead last week. In early July, they 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.

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 August 26-30, 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.

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. 

Democrats are trying to derail the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, hoping that if they win control of the Senate in November they can force President Trump to pick a more liberal candidate for the high court. Kavanuagh's confirmation hearings began this week, and 69% of voters think he is likely to be confirmed by the Republican-controlled Senate.

Voters think the upcoming midterm elections are more about Trump than about individual candidates and issues. Seventy-one percent (71%) say Democrats should focus more on policy areas where they disagree with the president. 

The president earned a monthly job approval of 47% in August, up one point from July. His high for the year is 49% in April. 

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 26-30, 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.