Poll: 47% of Voters Want Congress to Be Controlled by Democrats

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Voter sentiment is leaning in the Democrats’ favor for the 2018 midterm election following the first 100 days of Donald Trump’s presidency, a new poll found.

Of registered voters, 47% said they would prefer to see Democrats emerge from the 2018 midterm elections in control of Congress, compared to 43% who said the same about Republicans. Candidates from the left have already performed better than thought possible in special elections for traditionally Republican districts in Kansas and Georgia, though poll results this far in advance of midterms are not “consistently accurate predictors” of the election outcomes, according to NBC News, which conducted the poll with the Wall Street Journal.

Perceptions of Democrats are also better than the GOP, with 34% of respondents viewing the party positively and 39% viewing it negatively, compared to 31% of people viewing Republicans positively and 47% negatively — showing that poor opinions of both parties outweigh support.

“I’m not sure any of these results make it great to be anything,” one of the survey’s pollsters Fred Yang told NBC. “But I think it’s great right now not to be a Republican.”

The poll surveyed 900 people from April 17 to 20. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.3 percentage points.

[NBC]

 

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Write to Julia Zorthian at julia.zorthian@time.com