Republicans Maintain 3-Point Congressional Lead

The 2022 midterm elections are now 88 days away, and Republicans still have a three-point lead in their bid to recapture control of Congress.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that, if the elections for Congress were held today, 46% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for the Republican candidate, while 43% would vote for the Democrat. Just three percent (3%) would vote for some other candidate, but another eight percent (8%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The GOP lead is unchanged from last week, when they led 46%-43%. Republicans have led the Generic Congressional Ballot all year, although their lead has narrowed significantly over the past three weeks.

Rasmussen Reports is updating the Generic Congressional Ballot findings weekly on Fridays at 10:30 a.m. Eastern until the midterm elections in November.

In August 2018, before voters handed Democrats their first House majority in eight years, Democrats held a four-point advantage (45% to 41%) in the generic ballot question. As the November 2018 midterms neared, the margin was a statistical dead heat – Republicans 46%, Democrats 45% – in the final poll before Democrats won a slim House majority while Republicans gained Senate seats to maintain control of that chamber. =

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The survey of 2,500 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on August 7-11, 2022 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/-2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.

The Republican lead is mainly due to a seven-point advantage among independent voters. Eighty-six percent (86%) of Republican voters say they would vote for their own party’s congressional candidate, while 83% of Democrats would vote for the Democratic candidate. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 40% would vote Republican and 33% would vote Democrat, while nine percent (9%) would vote for some other candidate and 18% are undecided.

Fifty percent (50%) of whites, 29% of black voters and 43% of other minorities would vote Republican if the election were held today. Fifty-five percent (55%) of black voters, 41% of whites and 42% of other minorities would vote Democrat.

The so-called “gender gap” is slightly narrower in the latest findings, with men (49%) now seven points more likely than women voters (42%) to prefer Republican congressional candidates. The gap was eight points last week.

Voters under 40 favor Democrats by a 13-point margin, 49% to 36%, but voters ages 40-64 favor Republicans 49% to 41%, and the GOP lead is 11 points – 52% to 41% – among voters 65 and older.

Republican support is 14 points among retirees, while government employees favor Democrats by a five-point margin.

Republicans lead by eight points, 49%-41%, among voters with incomes between $30,000 and $50,000 a year, while Democrats have a 12-point advantage, 51% to 39%, among voters with annual incomes above $200,000.

Who do political parties represent, their own voters or outside interests? Republicans care about this question more than Democratic voters do.

Concerns about election cheating remain high, and a majority of voters favor the procedure by which Arizona “audited” disputed 2020 presidential election results in Maricopa County.

Additional information from this survey and a full demographic breakdown are available to Platinum Members only.

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