Generic Ballot Update - - Republicans maintain 5 pt lead on Congressional Generic Ballot

Same as last week - for second week in a row the Republican Party maintains a 5 pt lead on the generic Congressional Ballot:

Friday, August 26, 2022

• The 2022 midterm elections are now 74 days away, and Republicans still have a five-point lead in their bid to recapture control of Congress.
• The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online survey finds that, if the elections for Congress were held today, 47% of Likely U.S. Voters would vote for the Republican candidate, while 42% would vote for the Democrat. Just four percent (4%) would vote for some other candidate, but another eight percent (8%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
• The GOP lead is unchanged from last week, when they led 46%-41%. Republicans have led the Generic Congressional Ballot all year, although their lead has narrowed since mid-July
• Rasmussen Reports is updating the Generic Congressional Ballot findings weekly on Fridays at 10:30 a.m. Eastern until the midterm elections in November.
• In August 2018, before voters handed Democrats their first House majority in eight years, Democrats held a five-point advantage (46% to 41%) in the generic ballot question. As the November 2018 midterms neared, the margin was a statistical dead heat – Republicans 46%, Democrats 45% – in the final poll before Democrats won a slim House majority while Republicans gained Senate seats to maintain control of that chamber.
• The survey of 2,500 U.S. Likely Voters was conducted on August 21-25, 2022 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/-2 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.
• The Republican lead is mainly due to a 10-point advantage among independent voters. Eighty-six percent (86%) of Republican voters say they would vote for their own party’s congressional candidate, while 80% of Democrats would vote for the Democratic candidate. Among voters not affiliated with either major party, 42% would vote Republican and 32% would vote Democrat, while nine percent (9%) would vote for some other candidate and 17% are undecided.
• Fifty-one percent (51%) of whites, 27% of black voters and 46% of other minorities would vote Republican if the election were held today. Sixty-two percent (62%) of black voters, 38% of whites and 42% of other minorities would vote Democrat.
• The so-called “gender gap” has widened in the latest findings, with men (52%) now 10 points more likely than women voters (42%) to prefer Republican congressional candidates. The gap was eight points last week.
• Voters under 40 favor Democrats by an 11-point margin, 48% to 37%, but voters ages 40-64 favor Republicans 52% to 38%, and the GOP lead is eight points – 50% to 42% – among voters 65 and older.
• Retirees support Republicans over Democrats by a 15-point margin, 54% to 39%, and the GOP has a six-point lead (46%-40%) among private sector workers, while government employees favor Democrats by 10 points, 49%-39%.
• Republicans lead by 11 points, 50%-39%, among voters with incomes between $30,000 and $50,000 a year, while Democrats have a seven-point advantage, 49% to 42%, among voters with annual incomes above $200,000.
• A majority of American voters believe the federal Department of Justice’s investigation of former President Donald Trump is politically motivated, but most of them still approve of the investigation