Poll gives Democrats the edge in midterm election

WASHINGTON – The political landscape for the midterm elections favors Democrats in general, and female candidates in particular, a USA TODAY/ Suffolk University Poll finds, raising the prospect of significant perils for President Donald Trump with the next Congress.

At the traditional Labor Day start of the campaign’s fall sprint, those surveyed said by 50 percent to 39 percent that they were more likely to vote for the Democratic congressional candidate in their district, not the Republican one.

That double-digit advantage, if it holds, could enable Democrats to win control of the House, giving them the power to launch investigations and even consider impeachment of the president.

Both supporters and opponents of Trump called the stakes in November higher than usual.

If the GOP loses power, Gregory Bailey, 58, a Republican from Oklahoma City, warned in a follow-up interview, “The Democrats are just going to stifle getting any positive legislation through by wasting their time trying to impeach Trump.”

Analysts calculate that Democrats need an advantage nationally of about 8 percentage points to flip at least the 23 House seats that would bring a majority, David Wasserman of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report said.

The 11-point edge in the new poll may understate the risk for Republicans because undecided voters – 10 percent in this survey – historically and in special elections this year have broken against the party in power.

By 58 percent to 34 percent, those surveyed said they wanted to elect a Congress that mostly stands up to Trump rather than one that mostly cooperates with him.

The president’s job-approval rating was 40 percent approve, 56 percent disapprove. Those who “strongly disapprove” of how Trump is handling his job hit the highest level of his presidency in the USA TODAY poll, at 44 percent. That’s more than double the 19 percent who said they “strongly approve.”

The poll of 1,000 registered voters, taken by landline and cellphone Aug. 23-28, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

In the new poll, three of four voters said they had no preference between voting for a male or female candidate for Congress. But those who did have a preference said they would rather vote for a woman than a man, 16 percent to 7 percent. The sentiment is not bipartisan, however, and the female candidates nominated this year have been disproportionately Democrats.

Among Democrats and Democraticleaning voters, one in three, 29 percent, preferred to vote for a woman, just 5 percent for a man.

Among Republicans and Republican-leaning voters, 10 percent preferred to vote for a man, just 3 percent for a woman.