GOP Making Gains
Republicans gain in midterm polls
Republicans appear to be gaining on the Democrats in the 2006 midterm campaign because of growing confidence in the economy, falling gas prices and President Bush's sustained political offensive on the terrorist threat, according to pollsters and campaign strategists. The most significant political movement in the past week or two has been in the battle for control of Congress. National preference polls on the so-called "generic ballot" question -- which party's candidate voters say they would choose -- show Republicans have narrowed the once-substantial lead Democrats held and are now trailing them by three percentage points, independent pollster John Zogby said Friday. Mr. Zogby credited the Republican Party's sudden political turnaround to "the president's focus on the war on terrorism, a rebound among his own base," and the Democrats' failure to lay out a clear plan of their own on "how are we're going to get out of Iraq and what they would do about terrorism that's better than the Republicans."I'm not a fan of generic polling. I don't like the question "would you vote for a Democrat or Republican?" If someone is going to follow polls, I would suggest looking at each matchup, as opposed to the polls with generic quesitons. I'm going to predict that the the Democrats gain 5-7 seats in the House and 1-3 seats in the Senate, with both sides declaring victory. The Democrats will state that they've made inroads into the majority and that it's an "obvious" sign that Americans don't like the Republican leadership, and the Republicans will say that historically the party in power has done much much worse in the 6th year of a presidency. Either way, the spending problems won't be fixed and Congress will ignore the problems facing Social Security and Medicare.
