Generic Congressional Ballot: Republicans 45%, Democrats 36% Monday, July 19, 2010 Republican candidates now hold a nine-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, July 18, the widest gap between the two parties in several weeks. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 45% of Likely Voters would vote for their district's Republican congressional candidate, while 36% would opt for his or her Democratic opponent. Support for Republicans inched up a point from last week, while support for the Democrat fell two points. While solid majorities of Democrats and Republicans support the candidates of their respective party, voters not affiliated with either party prefer the Republican candidate by a 47% to 21% margin. Republicans have led on the Generic Ballot since mid-June 2009, and their lead hasnât dipped below five points since the beginning of December. Twice this year, they've posted a 10-point lead. However, the results were much different during the last two election cycles when Democrats regularly had large advantages. (Want a free daily e-mail update ? If it's in the news, it's in our polls). Rasmussen Reports updates are also available on Twitter or Facebook. Results for this survey are compiled on a full-week basis and crosstabs for full-week results and generic ballot trends are available for Premium Members only. When President Obama was inaugurated in January 2009, Democrats enjoyed a seven-point advantage on the Generic Ballot. The two parties were very close on the Generic Ballot throughout the spring of 2009, but in June, around the time Democrats began their campaign for health care reform, Republicans pulled ahead for good. GOP candidates started 2010 ahead by nine points. Since the first of the year, Republicans have earned between 43% and 47% of the vote, while Democratic support has ranged from 35% to 39%. Most voters now believe it is at least somewhat likely that Republicans will win control of both houses of Congress in this Novemberâs elections, and nearly half say there will a noticeable change in the lives of Americans if this happens. If Republicans win control of Congress this fall, voters overwhelmingly believe the nationâs legislature should wait until the newly elected officials take office before considering major legislation. Most, however, expect that Democrats will try to pass new legislation before turning over control.
Rsmussen is in the upper half of all categories. Even this guy says they are decent and he's a lib http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2010/06/pollster-ratings-v40-results.html Quote from Nate Silver: Rasmussen polling in 2000 was branded as 'Portrait of America', but was certainly conducted by Scott Rasmussen. These polls can be found if one is very patient about searching through the Internet Archive. In general, Rasmussen was somewhat below-average in 2000, well-above average in 2004, well above-average in 2006, and somewhat below-average in 2008. (They only released one poll in 2002). That works out to being slightly above-average overall. I'm not quite sure why they're taking the ribbing here; their rating is not what it was before, but remains in the ~75th percentile.
When it comes to news of political interest or importance, Fox is the ONLY source. The rest of the LSM are merely Leftist propaganda. Sad for us...