Republicans continue to gain ground on Democrats in the latest Monmouth University polling which found 47% of voters preferring GOP control of Congress to Democrats at 44%.
“Because the congressional map favors the GOP, Democrats need to do more than ‘keep it close’ in order to hold onto their House majority,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute said in a press release Monday. “One roadblock for them is that the issue picture favors Republicans.”
Republicans have gained 4% in the poll, up from 43% preferring GOP control in August, while Democrats dropped 6% from 50% in August to 44% now, according to the university.
While Democrats have been campaigning for the midterms with many social issues like abortion and climate change, the GOP has stayed focused on the economy, crime, and immigration, the university said in the release.
The top issues for voters, according to the survey were inflation [82%], crime [72%], elections and voting [70%], jobs and unemployment [68%], and immigration [67%], according to the poll.
“Democrats are all over the place when it comes to their key issues. This makes it difficult for the party to create a cohesive messaging strategy to motivate its base. Republicans, on the other hand, just have to hammer away at rising prices and ‘the wolf is at the door’ to get their voters riled up,” Murray said in the release. “A major problem for Democrats is their base messaging doesn’t hold as much appeal for independents as the GOP issue agenda does. Even though truly persuadable independents are a rather small group these days, this small difference can have a major impact given the expectation that congressional control will hinge on a handful of very close contests.”
The numbers in the poll also spell bad news for President Joe Biden, who is still underwater with 38% approving his job performance compared to 54% who disapprove his efforts.
Almost half [49%] of those surveyed said Biden is “doing worse” than they thought he would as president, compared to just 21% saying he is doing better and 28% that said he did what they thought he would.
“Obviously, the Republicans are hitting away at issues where Biden — and by extension the Democratic Party — is weakest,” Murray said. “But it’s also worth noting that Biden does not provide a rallying point for Democratic voters on some of the issues, such as abortion, that his party is leaning on to motivate its own base.”
The poll was conducted by telephone from Sept. 21-25 with 806 adults and has a margin of error of +/- 3.5 percentage points.
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