If the upcoming midterm elections were held today, 51 percent of voters said they would vote for Republican congressional candidates, a new poll released Sunday has found.
According to the latest ABC News/Washington Post survey, which asked respondents who they’d support in a race for U.S. House of Representatives, 41 percent of voters said they’d back the Democratic candidate in their district.
The survey shows the largest midterm advantage for the GOP out of the “110 ABC/Post polls to ask this question since November 1981.”
“Indeed, it’s only the second time the GOP has held a statistically significant advantage (the other was +7 points in January 2002) and the ninth time it’s held any numerical edge at all,” the poll stated.
The latest numbers come as President Joe Biden has seen low approval ratings in recent months. The newly-released survey puts Biden’s overall approval rating at 41 percent, with 53 percent of those surveyed saying they disapprove of his job performance.
With inflation soaring, only 39 percent of voters said they approve the president’s handling of the economy.
The poll was conducted via telephone between November 7 and November 10 and surveyed 1,001 adults, including more than 800 registered voters. The results have a margin of error of 3.5 percent.
Pollsters wrote that the “Democratic Party‘s difficulties are deep” and include “soaring economic discontent, a president who’s fallen 12 percentage points under water in job approval and a broad sense that the party is out of touch with the concerns of most Americans; 62 percent say so.”
A majority of those surveyed (58 percent) also believe that the GOP is “out of touch.”
While the poll shows Republicans with an advantage heading into the 2022 midterms, it also notes that there’s “some solace for Democrats in other results.”
It points out that Biden’s “keystone policy initiatives are far more popular than he is” with 63 percent of those surveyed saying they support the infrastructure bill that passed Congress earlier this month. And 58 percent said they back the nearly $2 trillion Build Back Better Act, a broad social spending bill that lawmakers are still debating.
“Yet, with the infrastructure bill secured, Biden gets little credit in this poll,” the survey added.
“Just 31 percent say he’s keeping most of his major campaign promises and 35 percent think he’s accomplished much overall.”
Recent polls have found former President Donald Trump with an edge over Biden in hypothetical 2024 matchups. An Iowa poll from Saturday showed Trump with a double-digit lead over Biden. Meanwhile, a national poll released last week found the former president two points ahead of Biden.
Trump has not formally announced he is running again for the Oval Office in 2024 but has strongly suggested it.