Pew's new election poll is brutal for Democrats

Pew&#039;s new election poll is brutal for Democrats

(Image credit: MARK WILSON/Getty Images)

last updated 8 January 2015

Pew is out with a new poll on the upcoming midterm elections, and the results are downright terrifying for Democrats. By a 47 to 43 percent split, registered voters say they're leaning toward voting Republican. Just over a quarter of voters say they'll consider their vote to be one against Obama; only 16 percent say their vote will be one for the president. And Obama's approval rating is still underwater, as it has been in Pew's polling since last year, with 44 percent of respondents supporting his job performance and 50 percent saying the opposite.

All of that is unequivocally terrible news for Democrats.

Is there any good news for the party? Perhaps this: While generic ballot questions are helpful for gauging the mood of the national electorate, they don't neatly reflect the mood of the electorate in specific states. The 2014 midterms are all about who comes away with control of the Senate. And in the handful of battleground states where GOP wins could flip the upper chamber, recent polling has shown the Democratic incumbents holding their own.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Jon Terbush is an associate editor at TheWeek.com covering politics, sports, and other things he finds interesting. He has previously written for Talking Points Memo, Raw Story, and Business Insider.

Subscribe to The Week

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox