Democrats Lead in All Seven—key states that will determine which party controls the Senate—according to a poll by The New York Times and Siena College one day before the U.S. midterm elections.
The poll shows that Democrats maintain a significant lead in Texas, where no Democrat has been elected to the Senate since 1988, as well as in Kansas, where that hasn’t happened since 1932.
ΣΧΕΤΙΚΑ ΑΡΘΡΑ
To secure a majority in the Senate, the Democrats must hold all the seats they currently hold and win at least four of the seats currently held by Republicans.
Democratic candidates are leading in Michigan, Kansas, Maine, Ohio, Texas, and Alaska, while holding a narrow lead in Iowa
According to the poll, dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump and disappointment with the way he is handling the economy are hurting the Republicans, as only 38% of likely voters in the seven states included in the poll approved of the president’s performance in office. As the NYT notes, “this is a strikingly low percentage, given that Trump won five of these states by double-digit margins just two years ago.”
According to the report, “the Democrats’ strengthened momentum stems from voters’ growing confidence in the party’s handling of the economy, the most important issue shaping voting behavior this year. The Democrats lead by nine percentage points on the issue of the cost of living in key states, and they hold the lead on this critical metric in all seven states.”
However, there are also some causes for concern for the Democrats: there are still undecided voters, and those who made their choice just in the last month favored the Republicans by a margin of nine percentage points.
A significant advantage for the Democratic candidates, however, is that they lead among independent voters in all seven states surveyed. The polls showed that the resurgence of Democratic momentum is due to a trend among younger voters and Latinos, as well as the Republicans’ relative inability to maintain the support of their traditional electoral base—namely, white working-class voters.
The New York Times had conducted polls in all seven states in September. In the latest poll, the Democrats improved their performance in six states (Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas), while losing ground in only one, Alaska.
