Congressional poll: Dems to retake senate?

[wyldwolf]

Associated Press-Ipsos poll conducted by Ipsos-Public Affairs. May 3-5, 2004. N=778 registered voters nationwide. MoE ± 3.5. (Data from 11/03 and earlier co-sponsored by Cook Political Report.)

"And if the election for Congress were held today, would you want to see the Republicans or Democrats win control of Congress?"

5/3-5/04 Democrats 50% Republicans 41%

http://www.pollingreport.com/cong2004.htm

Yeah, I know, it's a poll. So go ahead and rain on it.

[Pepperbelly]

1. not that simple although I wish it were...

If you really want to assess the chances, you have to look at what seats are actually up and the status of those individual races.

:shrug:

[Merlin]

2. Exactly!

A national poll is meaningless for either house.

[Nicholas D Wolfwood]

3. Incumbent advantage is huge

and is not accounted for in these polls.

[TruthIsAll]

6. No. Coattails are huge. And Kerry will win in a landslide.

The 50-41 Dem edge is probably very close to the true Kerry lead. Of course, the mediawhore pollsters don't want you to know that.

Remember:

True Kerry% = Reported Kerry % + 2/3 * (Undecided + Nader)%

[ithacan]

4. nationally, Dems have taken majority in Senate races since 1992

This result should be no surprise.

If you add up all the votes cast for each senate race since 1992, Democrats have won a majority of those votes nationally in each election since 1992.

But of course the total that counts is not national, it's state by state.

So I do not doubt that the poll is accurate. It's just that in terms of retaking the senate it is meaningless.

To see if that is really possible you have to look state by state. And my understanding is that if we do that, we do see a good chance for the Dems to retake the senate.

[fujiyama]

5. National polls

for both the senate and house are meaningless, especially so for the house, which has been gerrymandered to the point where there are very few competetive seats.

I'm starting to get more optimistic about our senate chances. Though it still will be difficult, I think we can take it back. We have some strong people running in many of the states where southern dems are retiring. Illinois is almost a sure bet. Colorado is looking good. I heard that OK also has a strong democrat running there. Polls for NC, SC, FL, and a few others have shown them to be very competetive with some advantages for the democrats.

I'd say the house is almost a lost cause. I don't see the dems taking it back for another 5-10 years. Though, I definetely still urge people to campaign for them and contribute...You never know...