Generic Congressional Ballot
Generic Congressional Ballot: Republicans 46%, Democrats 36%
Monday, July 26, 2010 Email to a Friend ShareThis.AdvertisementRepublican candidates now hold a 10-point lead over Democrats on the Generic Congressional Ballot for the week ending Sunday, July 25, the widest gap between the two parties in several weeks.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 46% 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 stayed the same.
Eighty-six percent (86%) of Republicans back their party's candidate, while 74% of Democrats support the candidate of their party. Voters not affiliated with either party prefer the Republican candidate by a 44% to 23% margin.
Republicans have led on the Generic Ballot since mid-June 2009, and their lead hasn’t fallen below five points since the beginning of December. Three times 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 Platinum 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 through 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 continue to favor repeal of the national health care bill, but nearly half see repeal as unlikely. A plurality believes repeal would be good for the economy.
Eighty-seven percent (87%) of voters say it is at least somewhat likely that a woman will be elected president of the United States in the next 25 years, up eight points from four years ago. Fifty-eight percent (58%) say it is Very Likely.
Three-out-of four voters (75%) prefer free markets over a government-managed economy.
Voters have mixed feelings about government regulation of big business, but most feel small businesses are regulated too much. There is also a strong belief that more competition and less regulation would be better for the economy and job creation.
Voters are a little less critical this month of both the president and the oil companies involved for their handling of the three-month-old oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico. But most Americans continue to be concerned about the overall economic impact of the Gulf oil leak, though they're less worried about gas prices rising at the pump.
With the deepwater oil leak apparently capped after three months of gushing into the Gulf of Mexico, support for both offshore oil drilling and drilling further out in deepwater remains largely unchanged. Most voters also remain concerned about the potential environmental impact of new drilling.
Looking back, voters remain unhappy with the government bailouts of the financial industry and troubled automakers General Motors and Chrysler.
Forty-seven percent (47%) of Americans are at least somewhat confident in the stability of the U.S. banking industry today, the highest number measured since April of last year, but 50% are not.
Americans are evenly divided over whether marijuana should be legalized in the United States, but most expect it to happen within the next decade.
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