USA: Republicans make gain in national poll, but Democrats remain in lead as election approaches
- 00:00:12
- ITN Source
USA: Republicans make gain in national poll, but Democrats remain in lead as election approaches
Less than 24-hours before Congressional elections take place across the United States, campaigns for the House of Representative and the U.S. Senate remained in full-swing as candidates made last moment appeals to voters. In Florida, U.S. President George W. Bush made a stop at a rally for Republican candidates. It was one of many stops President Bush has made for Republicans in recent days. "We are 24 hours away from voting. Some of the folks in Washington think they have already figured out the results," said Bush taking aim at confident Democratic candidates. Over the past couple of weeks polls showed Democrats ahead of Republican candidates in many congressional races. Since hitting the campaign trail Bush has suggested that the polls which showed Democrats way ahead have been wrong. Ironically the latest polls released show the President may have been right. "Republican's are going to turn out and it's going to be a great victory on November 7th," Bush added. Scott Keeter, director of research for the Pew Research Center in Washington, D.C. said Monday (November 6) that Republicans have made gains in their latest poll - but Democrats still appeared to be leading, amongst prospective voters. "Pew's new poll, and a couple of other polls that came out over the weekend show that the race for Congress is getting closer. Most polls have been showing the Democrats with a significant margin of 10 to even 15 points. Our poll now shows the race at four points among likely voters. A couple of other polls out over the weekend also show significant narrowing of the race. So this is a race that is getting tighter, but the Democrats are still ahead, and I think would still be favoured to win some of the close toss-up elections that they find themselves in," Keeter said. Senator Charles Schumer, Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said that Democrats still have healthy leads nationally, and haven't slipped in the polls - at least the polls that he's focused upon. "Even the Washington Post and the Pew polls which showed a narrowing - Democrats still showed a much larger advantage than they had at any time going into election day. In our own individual races, we don't see it at all. We see gains continuing. We are feeling very very good about things. We have not seen any change or diminution. You can point to one poll here or there and I can point to another one the other way," Schumer said. Unlike many past midterm elections, the 2006 race has widely been considered more of a national election and a score card on Bush's performance. "I hope the Democrats win and I think we're in big trouble, this country. We went to Iraq, as America we are supposed to protect the poor people, the innocent, so when we go to a country, we went to Iraq, we didn't protect their people. We went there, we invaded, we had "shock and awe" and then we kind of forgot about it," Bruce Patrice told Reuters in New York City. "I think that the Democrats will probably take the House of Representatives and probably the Republicans will keep the Senate," Jay Korn said. "I think people have had enough of spending and the war in Iraq, the health care issues, I think there are a lot of issues in this country that Republicans haven't done a good job for us," Chris Miller of California, told Reuters. "The Democrats because I think George Bush really screwed up with this war and I think he's got to get the payback," Kat Marotta said. "It's tough to say. It's right on the border but I don't think anything's going to change no matter who's in the majority in Congress. I think the policies of both of the main parties are so close to each other, there's really not much to distinguish them," Dennis Callagan told Reuters. Democrats need to win 15 seats they don't currently hold to win majority control of the House of Representatives, where all 435 seats are up for election. In the senate only 33 of the 100 seats are up for election. Democrats would need to win 6 seats they don't currently hold to take control.
ITN Source | November 7, 2006
