Republicans Congressional Lead Down To 4 Points

The 2022 midterm elections are now only 18 days away, and Republicans have a four-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, 47% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for the Republican candidate, while 43% would vote for the Democrat. Just four percent (4%) would vote for some other candidate, but another seven percent (7%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The GOP lead is down three points from last week, when they led 48% to 41%. Republicans have led the Generic Congressional Ballot all year, although their lead has narrowed since mid-July, when they led by as much as 10 points.

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 October 2018, before voters handed Democrats their first House majority in eight years, Democrats held a three-point advantage (47% to 44%) in the generic ballot question. The margin was still 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 October 16-20, 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 due mainly to an 11-point advantage among independent voters. Eighty-five percent (85%) of Republican voters say they would vote for their own party’s congressional candidate, while 82% of Democrats would vote for the Democratic candidate. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 42% would vote Republican and 31% would vote Democrat, while 11% would vote for some other candidate and 15% are undecided.

Fifty-three percent (53%) of whites, 21% of Black voters and 39% of other minorities would vote Republican if the election were held today. Sixty-one percent (61%) of Black voters, 39% of whites and 43% of other minorities would vote Democrat.

The so-called “gender gap” has narrowed significantly in the latest findings, with men (47%) now just one point more likely than women voters (46%) to prefer Republican congressional candidates. The gap was 10 points last week.

Voters under 40 favor Democrats by a 14-point margin, 48% to 34%, but voters ages 40-64 favor Republicans 48% to 42%, and the GOP lead is 21 points – 57% to 36% – among voters 65 and older.

Breaking down the electorate by income categories, Democrats lead by seven points, 50% to 43%, among voters with annual incomes over $200,000, while Republicans have a six-point advantage, 47% to 41%, among those earning between $30,000 and $50,000 a year.

Republicans now have their strongest advantage among entrepreneurs and retirees, while both government employees and private sector workers favor Democrats.

While most voters will wait until Election Day to cast their ballot, half of Democrats say they’ll vote early this year.

A majority of voters don’t believe President Joe Biden should seek reelection in 2024, and are not confident in his ability to do the job now.

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

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