45 Years Of House Ballot Polling Finds Pollsters Typically Overstate Democrats Actual Performance

Image on the left is courtesy of Alaskans For Begich TV ad, and highlights the wealthy, mega-donors Koch Brothers support of Republican candidates. Image on the right comes from an anti-Obamacare ad sponsored by Generation Opportunity.

Glancing at the current HuffPollster and RCP polling averages, Democrats and Republicans are essentially tied on the generic House ballot question. The former finds Republicans ahead by less than half-a-percentage point, while the latter finds them down by a roughly equal margin. But don't expect the same polling dynamic that exits today to be present on election day - at least not if past generic House ballot polling dating back to 1970 has anything to do with it. And further, I'd caution against relying too much on the surveys taken in the final week before the election, too, as they've been pretty hit-or-miss themselves.

Hundreds of generic ballot surveys taken over the last 45 years and eleven midterms finds polls conducted in the Spring of an election year (April, May, and June) have overstated the eventual Democratic margin in nine of them, or 82% of the time (including the last five midterms in a row). Surveys taken in the final week(s) of a campaign are no exception, understating the Republican margin in eight of eleven elections. Consider the tables below, the first of which provides polling data in the spring of each midterm since 1970 compared to the final result, the second of which compares polling data taken in the final week(s) of the campaign with the actual result.

Polling data pre-2006 was provided by the Roper Center's IPOLL databank. * Indicates the cutoff date for polls to be included in the average was TWO weeks prior to the actual election day. ** Indicates the cutoff date for polls to be included in the average was THREE weeks prior to the actual election day. Dates were only altered if necessary to obtain a large enough sample to average.

Surveys conducted in the Spring of the last eleven midterm elections tended to overstate the eventual Democratic margin over Republicans by an average of five net points. Looking at specific elections, such as 2010, you can see Republicans were polling an average 43% in the Spring of that year, though they eventually won 51% of the popular vote. Democrats, meanwhile, were polling an average of 42% that Spring, and wound up with 45% that November. The Republican advantage over Democrats grew from just one point in April, May, and June, to six points in November.

Despite rising job approval, Kay Hagan puts up her worst numbers yet against unsettled NC GOP field in new PPP poll

While some things have changed since 1998, a lot about the North Carolina electorate hasn't, according to Public Policy Polling crosstabs. That year, fmr. Sen. Lauch Faircloth (R-NC) (left) lost after one term in the U.S. Senate to newcomer John Edwards (D-NC). Photos courtesy of Ray Lustig / The Washington Post and Brooks Kraft/Corbis Sygma.

 
For all the chatter about the Republican's current inability to recruit a quality candidate to challenge North Carolina's junior Senator in the 2014 election, a new Public Policy Polling survey offers the state GOP with a glimmer of hope. Out of the Democratic pollster's six polls on the race since December 2012, a Republican named Cherie Berry has finally managed to TIE Sen. Kay Hagan (D), despite Hagan reaching her highest job approval rating yet (46/40%).

The chart below documents the results of PPP's 2014 NC Senate poll since December 2012, including only the candidates surveyed in the most recent poll:

Unfortunately for pollsters and researchers, exit polling in non-presidential year North Carolina Senate races is hard to come by (in 2010, there was no exit polling because Richard Burr led Elaine Marshall consistently throughout the campaign; in 2006, there was no NC Senate race; in 2002, major malfunctions with VNS led to exit polls being off, and as a result, incredibly difficult to come by. 1998 was the last NC Midterm with readily available exit poll data). This fact is important because without such data, it can be difficult for pollsters to weight the expected electorate.

Nevertheless, a frequently stated rule of thumb regarding midterms is that they typically feature a more white, less ethnically diverse, older, and generally more Republican type of voter than seen in Presidential election years.

So how do PPP's most recent findings regarding the potential 2014 electorate stack up as compared to the 2012 NC presidential electorate, and the 1998 Midterm electorate?

At least in terms of racial identification, the PPP crosstabs reveal an electorate that looks very similar to the one seen in 1998, when Democratic pariah John Edwards, then just beginning his political career and still well-liked, defeated 1-term incumbent Republican Senator and pig-farmer Lauch Faircloth, 51-47%. That year, 76% of the electorate identified as white, 22% identified as black, and 2% Hispanic/other. Flash forward 16 years to PPP's May survey, and the electorate is 76% white, 18% black, and 6% Hispanic/other.

In terms of partisan identification, age, and gender, the crosstabs diverge from the '98 Edwards/Faircloth race, at times resembling the 2012 electorate, and at times resembling nothing North Carolina electoral politics has experienced yet.

The chart below displays the North Carolina electorate in every election featuring a readily available exit poll since 1992, broken down by gender identification, age identification, and partisan identification:

It's Not the End of The World for the GOP: A Comparison of 2010 and 2014 Generic Congressional Ballot Polling

Republicans seem to be doing a lot of head-scratching these days. For most of President Obama's time in office, nothing seems to have gone the way they had predicted or hoped. And worse than that, the GOP is receiving the overwhelming majority of the blame from the American public for the country's seeming state of disarray. From the debt ceiling debate, to the "fiscal cliff," to the sequester and more, President Obama has become the new Teflon president, while the GOP can barely muster a quarter of the country to admit they have a favorable view of the party. But how can all of this be? After all, the Democrats have controlled the Senate chamber for the last 6 years, and the White House the last four.  The President's masterful control of the bully pulpit, his continued nationwide, campaign-style advocacy on behalf of his 2nd term agenda, and an obviously supportive D.C. press corps, all have some role in creating the impression of a Republican Party that just can't get it together. 

And to top it off, in the wake of weak white turnout in 2012, there's talk in some circles of an emerging Democratic majority, at least at the presidential level. Sounds like a bit of a disaster for the GOP, huh? Surprisingly, no, not if the generic congressional ballot for 2014 is any indication.

According to both Pollster Trend and TPM Poll Tracker, Democrats currently lead the 2014 generic congressional ballot by just 42-40% and 43-40%, respectively. Regarding the 3 most recent surveys from 3 pollsters that frequently ask the generic ballot question, Republicans actually LEAD in one of them (Harper Polling (R)), TIE in one (PPP (D)), and trail by 3 in the other (Rasmussen). Should these numbers convince the GOP it's time to the shift their views leftward, or cause panic over a Democratic landslide in 2014? Probably not, especially once you consider where Republicans stood on the generic ballot at this point in the 2010 cycle. The below chart compares the 2010 and 2014 generic ballots by looking at an average through the time line of post-election 2008/2012 through the present (early March 2009/2013):

Compiled from TPM and Pollster

Without question, the Tea Party landslide of 2010 was an electoral high-watermark for Republicans over the last quarter century. That year, Republicans gained 63 House seats, 6 senate seats, controlled 29/50 governor seats, and carried the national house vote 51-45%. Yet despite all their success, at this very point in the 2010 cycle, it was the DEMOCRATS that led the Republicans on the generic ballot, 44-37%, as the above chart indicates. By comparison, present-day Republicans are only trailing Democrats on the generic ballot 45-41%. So, here's a message to Republicans: The SKY IS NOT FALLING...yet, at least. Especially not when you realize that no 2nd-term President's party has gained seats in Congress in their final midterm election since 1938, save 1998.