The Generic Ballot, 2010, and a Republican Resurgence?

A slew of new national polls released over the last 24 hours show Republicans narrowing what had been a wide gap on the generic ballot question — “do you plan to vote for the Democratic candidate or the Republican candidate in 2010” — over the past two elections, results that suggest the GOP may be on the road to recovery on the Congressional level.

Let’s first look at the data.

* The latest NBC/Wall Street Journal survey showed the Democratic candidate receiving 46 percent to the Republican candidate’s 39 percent — the closest Republicans have been on the generic ballot in that poll since April 2006.

* A National Public Radio poll, conducted jointly by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (a Democratic firm) and Public Opinion Strategies (a Republican firm) showed the generic ballot as a dead heat: 43 percent chose the Republican candidate while 42 percent opted for the Democratic candidate.

* A Gallup poll (in the chart above) showed a Democratic candidate receiving 50 percent to a Republican candidate’s 44 percent, a tightening of the wider margin — 53 percent to 41 percent — that Democrats enjoyed in Gallup data just before the 2008 election.

As we have written many times in this space, it’s important when looking at the generic ballot to understand what it does and what it doesn’t.

It doesn’t double as a predictor of specific results in a congressional district. It does, usually, serve as an accurate guide to the feelings that voters have about the two parties.

Given that, there is reason for Republicans to be optimistic about where they stand in the battle for Congress.

“It’s going to be a bad year for the incumbent party,” Democratic pollster Peter Hart told NBC’S “First Read. “It may not affect the president as much as it will affect the party and the makeup of the Congress.”

And this from the Gallup analysis: “The six-point Democratic advantage among all registered voters in the current poll suggests the 2010 election could be quite close if it were held today given low turnout in midterm elections and the usual Republican advantages in turnout.”

The decline in Democrats’ advantage on the generic ballot gibes with historical trends that suggest the midterm of a president’s first term in office usually sees substantial gains at the House and, to a less er extent, the Senate level.

In only one similar election since World War II has the president’s party not lost seats in the House and that came in 2002 when the overarching cultural and political effects of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were still being felt.

Couple the generic ballot numbers with that historical trend and sprinkle in the facts that Republican recruiting has vastly improved over this time in the past few election cycle and that Democrats’ 54 seat gain in 2006 and 2008 left them defending some very Republican seats and you quickly draw the conclusion that Republicans are poised to cut into the 40-seat majority House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) currently enjoys.

How big a dent they can put into that majority remains to be seen.

For more on the top House pickup opportunities for both parties, make sure to check out tomorrow’s Friday Line.
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