Democrats catch up to GOP on enthusiasm in final NBC News poll before midterms

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The final national NBC News poll of the 2022 midterms finds a highly competitive campaign landscape ahead of Election Day. While Democrats have pulled even with Republicans in enthusiasm, President Joe Biden remains unpopular, and voters express deep dissatisfaction about the state of the country.

Forty-eight percent of likely voters say they prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress as the outcome of Tuesday’s elections, while 47% prefer a Republican-controlled Congress. That’s a reversal from October, when 48% preferred a GOP-controlled Congress versus 47% who wanted Democrats in charge, although the shift is well within the poll’s margin of error. CONTINUED

Mark Murray, NBC News

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Why 2022 may bring a new peak of political instability

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All year, the principal question looming over the 2022 campaign has been whether Democrats could defy political gravity.

As we’re nearing the end, the answer appears to be: no, or at least not entirely.

Midterm elections have almost always been bad for the party holding the White House, and they have been especially bad when most Americans are dissatisfied with the economy and the president’s performance. Those conditions are present in force now, with polls showing that most Americans disapprove of how President Joe Biden has handled crime, the border, and especially the economy and inflation. Pessimism about the economy is pervasive. Historically such attitudes have generated big gains up and down the ballot for the party out of the White House – in this case, the Republicans. …

So many races are so close – within the margin of error in public polls – that the results Tuesday could range from a true red wave to a Democratic sigh of relief. The scary precedent for Democrats is that in wave years almost all of the close races often tip in the same direction – toward the party out of power. CONTINUED

Ronald Brownstein, CNN

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Post-ABC poll: House vote nearly split, GOP has edge on economy and turnout

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Republicans hold significant advantages on the bread-and-butter issues of the economy and inflation that are central concerns of this fall’s election, and are poised to claim a majority in the House in Tuesday’s election, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Voters’ intentions for the House are split about evenly, with 49 percent of registered voters saying they will vote for the Republican candidate in their district and 48 percent saying they will vote for the Democrat. Likely voters split 50 percent Republican and 48 percent Democratic. CONTINUED

Dan Balz, Scott Clement & Emily Guskin, Washington Post

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Economic discontent fuels GOP hopes as midterms draw to a close

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Economic discontent and President Joe Biden’s unpopularity continue to fuel Republican prospects in the closing days of the 2022 midterm election campaign, with the share of Americans saying they’ve gotten worse off financially doubling since Biden took office, according to the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll.

Given inflation stubbornly near a 40-year high, 80% of likely voters in the ABC/Post poll call the economy a top issue in their vote for Congress; 77% say the same about inflation specifically. The Republican Party leads the Democrats by a dozen or more percentage points in trust to handle each — and by even more on another issue: crime. …

All told, 49% of registered voters favor the Republican in their congressional district, 48% the Democrat. It’s a similar 50%-48% among likely voters. That marks a retreat from a 7-point Democratic advantage, 50%-43% among registered voters, in the last ABC/Post poll before the 2018 midterms, when the Democrats romped. CONTINUED

Gary Langer, ABC News

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Checks and Balance: End of midterm

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The big guns are out. Donald Trump has three rallies planned before election day. Barack Obama has popped up in several battleground states. The former presidents will, separately, converge on Pennsylvania at the weekend, where Obama will be joined by a lesser-spotted figure on the trail: President Biden. What’s at stake in these midterm elections?

The Economist’s Elliott Morris assesses what pundits have got wrong about the campaign. We consider why Democratic warnings about the future of democracy aren’t cutting through. And the Republican Governor of Virginia Glenn Youngkin summarises his party’s closing arguments.

John Prideaux hosts with Charlotte Howard and Idrees Kahloon.

Checks and Balance podcast, The Economist

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Pre-election polling trends

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Here is my look at the pre-election polling, as of Nov. 5, 2022.

The raw polling data is from FiveThirtyEight.com, who generously allow download of their polling database. The trends are my estimates and not those of FiveThirtyEight or anyone else.

I include both LV and RV poll results because I believe this reflects uncertainty about turnout, which most do not include in their estimates. CONTINUED

Charles Franklin (Marquette Law School), PollsAndVotes

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