Fox News Poll: Republicans more interested in upcoming midterm elections
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Reuters
The congressional generic ballot is tied in this week’s Fox News poll, yet the GOP has an important edge: More Republicans than Democrats are really interested in the upcoming elections.
If the congressional election were “held today,” 42 percent of voters would support the Democratic candidate in their district, while 42 percent would back the Republican. Another 13 percent aren't sure for whom they'd cast their ballot.
Click here for the poll results.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Earlier this month the GOP candidate had a four-point edge. In May, the Democrat was up by three points.
The new poll shows the parties evenly matched on the generic ballot despite Republicans continuing to trail Democrats in congressional job ratings.
For Congressional Democrats: 30 percent of voters approve and 62 percent disapprove of their job performance.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}For Congressional Republicans: 22 percent approve vs. 68 percent disapprove.
Perhaps surprisingly, only 39 percent of GOP faithful approves of the job Congressional Republicans are doing. That accounts for most of the approval-rating gap between the parties.
Among Democrats, 59 percent approve of their party’s lawmakers in Congress.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Independents give both Republicans (13 percent) and Democrats (20 percent) low approval ratings.
One election advantage for the GOP is that 66 percent of Republicans are at least “very” interested in the midterms, while just 54 percent of Democrats feel the same. Moreover, 35 percent of Republicans are “extremely” interested compared to 24 percent of Democrats.
When zeroing in on only voters who are at least very interested: 49 percent would vote for the Republican candidate and 38 percent would back the Democrat. And that’s mostly unchanged for the last two months. Among interested voters the GOP candidate was up 11 points in early June and seven points in May.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Fox News poll is based on landline and cell phone interviews with 1,018 randomly chosen registered voters nationwide and was conducted under the joint direction of Anderson Robbins Research (D) and Shaw & Company Research (R) from June 21-23, 2014. The full poll has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.