Dem
47
GOP
53
A new Marist poll on the generic House ballot has the Democrats up by 14 points, with 55% of adults saying they would vote for an unnamed Democrat and 41% saying they would vote for an unnamed Republican. The candidates matter somewhat, but less for the House than for the Senate. The survey was taken last week.
The most recent poll before that had the Democrats up by 7. This is a pretty big jump, if true. 14 points is a huge lead. Suppose this is true and continues until Election Day. What would that mean? Very crudely, any Republican in an R+13 or less red district would be at risk. There are 131 Republicans currently in districts ranging from D+3 to R+13. All of these would be competitive and in the resulting blue wave, the 58 Republicans in D+3 to R+7 districts would mostly drown, along with some of those in the R+8 to R+13 districts. Democrats would have a huge margin in the House. Such a wave would probably give them control of the Senate as well.
But a few words of warning here. First, the midterm election was not last week, nor is it this week, or any week this year. As readers well know, in politics a week is a long time. Second, this is just one poll. Marist is very good, but it will take several more polls confirming this before we really believe it, and even then, stuff changes. Nevertheless, it is better for a party to be +14 than -14 in the generic House poll. (V)