The Blue Wave Rises, Con't

Who could have known that the "demise" of the Democrats' generic ballot lead in January was nowhere near reality now that the dust has settled on Trump's tax scam bill and Republicans have reverted to form on putting guns everywhere?

Democrats once again hold a wide advantage in a generic congressional matchup, according to a new CNN poll conducted by SSRS, backed by a base of supporters who are more enthusiastic than Republican partisans and more motivated by core issues. 

The poll finds 54% of registered voters say they back a Democrat in their congressional district, 38% say they back a Republican. That's a shift in favor of the Democrats since January, bringing their advantage in a hypothetical generic matchup to about the same level as early 2006, a year in which the party won control of both the House and the Senate. 

Read the full poll results 

This also mirrors their advantage on the question last fall, before a January full of good economic news brought a shift toward more positive numbers for both President Donald Trump and his party. The same poll also found Trump's approval rating declining -- a metric that's frequently closely tied to his party's performance in a midterm election year.
Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents remain more enthusiastic about voting this fall than Republicans and Republican-leaners. Overall, 51% of that Democratic base say they are extremely or very enthusiastic about voting in November compared with 41% of the Republican base. 

The poll also suggests that the issues on which Republicans have largely pinned their electoral hopes -- the economy, taxes and immigration -- are carrying less weight with voters than are health care and gun policy -- two issues where the Democrats typically have stronger backing from the public overall. 

Health care and gun policy are deemed deeply important by about half of voters (53% and 49%, respectively, call them extremely important), while about four in 10 say they are as motivated by the economy (43%) and immigration (38%). Sexual harassment is a sharp motivator for 36% of voters. Taxes, an issue Republicans have said will move voters as they realize the benefits of the tax changes passed last year, is extremely important for 35%. The investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election rounds out the list, with just about a quarter (26%) calling that extremely important to their vote.

That's a big reason there why the Democrats are suddenly back into a comfortable double-digit lead: gun policy matters to voters this time around.  Whether it will still matter in November is a major question, but for now America has been reminded again why the Republicans are so bad at governance.

Five Thirty Eight has the combined generic ballot polling results giving Team Blue a healthy 10 point lead.

We'll see, but it definitely appears that the slide Democrats were on in January has definitively ended as we head into March.

Here's the bad, bad news for the GOP from that CNN poll though:

If 42% of white voters are now less likely to vote for an NRA-backed candidate and only 16% more likely, then the the GOP will get barbecued in November, plain and simple.  On the flip side, white voters are more likely to vote for gun safety candidate, 35% to 26%.

And that includes a  31% to 20% margin that gun-owner households are less likely to vote for an NRA-backed candidate now.

Like the #MeToo movement and tolerance for sexual harassment, something has fundamentally changed with gun control in America in the Trump era, and November could be even worse for the GOP than people think.