The Poll-Asked Look, Con't

Yet another poll, this time from NBC News, finds the following three things: Americans overwhelmingly want to keep Roe v. Wade in place, President Biden's approval ratings are mediocre at best (and slipping down into Trump territory), and down-ticket Democrats are doing much better than earlier this year on the subject of the generic congressional ballot.

Support for abortion rights has reached a record high, and nearly two-thirds of Americans oppose the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, according to a new national NBC News poll conducted after the leak of a draft opinion that would strike down the constitutional right to abortion.

What’s more, the survey finds abortion climbing up the list of issues that Americans believe are the most important, and that Democratic interest in the upcoming midterms has increased since earlier this year.

But the poll also found that this Supreme Court draft opinion hasn’t substantially altered the overall political environment heading into November’s elections — with inflation and the economy remaining the public’s top issues, President Joe Biden’s job rating falling below 40 percent and a whopping 75 percent of Americans saying the country is headed in the wrong direction.

It’s the fourth straight NBC News poll with the wrong-track number higher than 70 percent, and the fifth time in the poll’s 34-year history when the wrong-track number hit 75 percent or higher.

The other times were in 2008 (during the Great Recession) and 2013 (during a government shutdown).

“It is a flashing red light when you see a number like this,” said Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, who conducted this survey with Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates.

“Americans are telling us this is as bad as 2008,” McInturff added.

Yet given these numbers, Democrats are still tied with Republicans in the poll’s question of which party should control Congress.

“It is remarkable that preference for control of Congress is even overall, and that the gap in interest in the election has narrowed,” said Horwitt, the Democratic pollster. 

 

The better news is that the upcoming loss of abortion rights in two dozen states has finally motivated Democrats into closing the enthusiasm gap, rapidly.

Maybe more significantly, Democratic interest in the midterms has increased — from 50 percent of Democrats in March who indicated a high level of interest (either a “9” or “10” on a 10-point scale) to 61 percent now.

That’s compared to Republicans, who were at 67 percent high interest two months ago, versus 69 percent now.

“How [abortion] plays out in November is to be determined. but for now, it is injecting some much-needed enthusiasm into parts of the Democratic coalition,” said Horwitt, the Democratic pollster.

 

Americans are realizing that the GOP isn't the solution to our problems, and that they are in fact the cause of many of them.