Republican Congressional Candidates Seemingly Unaffected by Trump Unease
New Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll suggests voters may split ballots between parties
By Aaron Zitner
Updated Oct. 16, 2016 9:04 a.m. ET
Voter unease with Donald Trump doesn't appear to be producing the kind of backlash against his party’s congressional candidates that would strip Republicans of a majority in the House, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.
When asked which party they would want to control Congress after next month’s elections, 46% of the registered voters in the survey favored a Democratic-led Congress and 44% backed a GOP-led Congress.
By historical standards, that 2-point advantage for Democrats doesn't signal the kind of wave that would bring the party a big gain of House seats. The last two times that Democrats picked up a large number of House seats, in 2006 and 2008, they led by 10 points or more on the ”congressional control” question.
Coming amid weak support for Mr. Trump, the numbers suggest that many voters are ready to back one party for president and another in down-ballot races, a reversal of recent trends. Such ”ticket-splitting” has declined in recent years as the nation’s voters have become more sharply partisan.
Hillary Clinton’s lead over Mr. Trump widened over the past month in Journal/NBC News polling, while her party’s advantage on who should control Congress narrowed.
Mrs. Clinton led Mr. Trump by 11 percentage points among likely voters, 48% to 37%, in the survey conducted last week, compared with a 6-point advantage in September. Both margins are larger than the Democrats’ lead on which party should control Congress, which stood at 4 points in August, 3 points in September and 2 points in the new survey.
One reason for the disparity may be that voters want Republicans to retain some power in Washington in the case that Mrs. Clinton is elected.
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