Could Dems Retake The House In 2012?

Tom Jensen at Public Policy Polling finds that numbers among fickle independent voters have decisively turned against the Republicans in Congress.

43% of voters think that House Republicans are doing a worse job now than the Democrats did, compared to only 36% who think the GOP has brought an improvement. 19% think things are about the same. 62% of voters thinking that the Republicans have either made things worse or brought no improvement to an already unpopular Congress does not bode particularly well for the party.

46% of voters say that if there was an election for Congress today they would vote Democratic, compared to only 41% who would vote Republican. That five point advantage for Democrats is only a hair below the margin Republicans won by in the national popular vote last year. A victory of that magnitude for the Democrats next year would at the very least result in the party taking back a large number of the seats it lost last year, and it could be enough to take back the outright majority- hard to say at this point without knowing how good a number the GOP can do in redistricting.

The key to this strong movement back toward the Democrats right now is the same as the key to the strong movement away from the Democrats last year- fickle independents quickly growing unhappy with the party in power. Exit polls showed independents supporting the GOP by a 19 point margin last year at 56-37. Now only 30% of those voters think that the Republican controlled House is moving things in the right direction, compared to 44% who think things were better with the Democrats. Given those numbers it's not much of a surprise that independents now say they'd vote Democratic for the House by a 42-33 margin if these was an election today, representing a 28 point reversal in a span of just five months.

Not how sure I take the actual numbers seriously, but a 28 point shift towards Democrats is pretty hard to ignore, and it certainly makes sense.  It's not like Republicans have done a damn thing about jobs or the economy or anything other than going after Planned Parenthood and NPR, and threatening to shut down the government every 37 seconds if they don't get what they want.

I can see why independents would be horrified, but then again this is exactly what anyone with a thinking brain said would happen with a GOP House right now.  Obama's "The Only Adult In the Room" approach seems to be paying off, at least by one measure.

Still, we'll see what he says today in his speech.

(Oh, and bonus chuckles from Dan Riehl who complains that the poll clearly shows the problem is Republicans haven't destroyed government quickly enough, and Col. Mustard, who says that the poll showing the GOP has a serious problem with independents means PPP is too biased towards the Dems or something.  My Good Capitalist Friends On The Right are even more graphic (and decidedly less civil) about their opinion of Jensen's outfit.)