NRCC poll shows GOP in the lead over Democrats to retake House

House Republicans’ campaign arm released new polling Tuesday showing the party is in a strong position to retake the lower chamber as the 2022 midterm elections heat up.

According to a new poll released Tuesday by the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the GOP has a 43 percent to 40 percent lead over Democrats with registered voters in the generic ballot across 85 potential battleground districts. Those results mark an improvement from the same poll conducted in February, April and July that had Democrats at 44 percent with voters. 

The boost for the GOP in the Republican poll appears to be fueled in part by a drop in President Biden’s approval rating. The presidential approval rating is underwater, with 45 percent of voters approving of the job Biden is doing compared with 51 percent who disapprove. The opposite was true in July, when 51 percent of voters approved of Biden’s performance compared with 45 percent who disapproved. 

Only 39 percent of independents approve of Biden’s job performance, and Republicans have a 35-27 lead among independents in the 85 districts, according to the poll. 

Other key demographics are also moving toward Republicans in the poll, with white college-educated voters favoring Republicans by a 44-41 margin and Hispanics split even between the two parties.

The poll sounds an alarm bell for Democrats, who have historically led on the generic ballot even in cycles when they lost ground. Conventional wisdom says that the party typically needs an advantage in the mid-single digits on the generic ballot to not lose seats. 

The polling comes as Democrats are scrambling to pass a bipartisan infrastructure bill and a roughly $2 trillion social spending package, negotiations for which have revealed stark disagreements within the party between progressives and moderates.

Fifty-nine percent of voters surveyed in the Republican poll said they think the government is doing too many things. 

The survey compounds on building confidence for Republicans, who are seizing on a sluggish economy, frustration over the coronavirus pandemic and the violent withdrawal from Afghanistan to hit Democrats.

In addition, Democrats are defending one of the narrowest House majorities in modern history, and redistricting alone in GOP-controlled states could be enough to make up the margin Republicans need to win the majority.

The NRCC-commissioned poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters from Oct. 16 to 21 and has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.