A handful of recent polls in battleground seats confirms it will be a district-by-district fight for the House majority. But an even deeper look reveals more context about voters’ mood and the issues at the top of their minds.
Democrats need a net gain of just four seats to get to the necessary 218, although the path to majority is slightly wider for Republicans. The GOP needs to win four of the 15 seats rated as Toss-up by Inside Elections while Democrats need to win 12, as long as the other districts are won by the favored party.
While Republicans were poised to grow their House majority when President Joe Biden was slumping at the top of the Democratic ticket, Democrats have a chance with Kamala Harris as their nominee. A series of polls commissioned by Inside Elections in partnership with Noble Predictive Insights showed the vice president getting close to Biden’s 2020 performance against former President Donald Trump, which gives House Democrats a chance this November considering the general lack of ticket-splitting.
Even though the polls were conducted over the past three months, across the country, in various types of competitive districts, there were some consistent trends beyond ballot tests.
Michigan’s 7th (conducted July 8-11) is one of Democrats’ most vulnerable open seats, while Ohio’s 9th (conducted July 22-24) and North Carolina’s 1st (conducted Sept. 24-30) feature two of Democrats’ most vulnerable incumbents. Oregon’s 5th (conducted Aug. 26-28) is host to one of Republicans’ most vulnerable incumbents, while Montana’s 1st (conducted Sept. 11-14) is a GOP-leaning district with an underperforming Republican member.
While the initial ballot tests for each race and relevant Senate and presidential numbers in relevant districts are available via Inside Elections, there are a couple of other trends that are clear below the toplines.
The issues
Voters in all five districts had the same three top issues. When given a list of more than a dozen options, voters said inflation, immigration and abortion were the most important when deciding their vote.
Inflation ranked highest in Michigan’s 7th (23 percent), Ohio’s 9th (25 percent), Oregon’s 5th (21 percent) and North Carolina’s 1st (27 percent). Immigration and abortion ranked either second or third (and close together) at anywhere from 11 to 16 percent in the quartet of seats. Twenty percent of likely voters in Montana’s 1st, the most Republican district of the batch, said immigration was the most important, followed by abortion (16 percent) and inflation (14 percent).
An election about the economy or immigration likely favors Trump, although Harris has narrowed the trust gap with Trump on those issues relative to Biden’s standing. Democrats dream of an election in which voters are focused on access to abortion.
In districts where respondents were asked about a previous or future ballot measure concerning access to abortion, voters aligned with the Democratic, abortion-rights position with 57 percent (Oregon), 62 percent (Ohio) and 54 percent (Montana).
Overall, it’s remarkable consistency among districts that are hundreds, and sometimes thousands, of miles apart.
National vs. local
There was also remarkable consistency in voters’ views on the direction of the country compared with the direction of their state. In four of the districts, voters were much more pessimistic about the direction of the country than their local outlook.
In Michigan’s 7th, just 24 percent of likely voters said the country was on the right track while 67 percent said the country was headed in the wrong direction, a 43-point gap. But those same voters showed just a 9-point gap about the direction of Michigan (41 percent right track vs. 50 percent wrong direction).
There was a similar dynamic in Ohio’s 9th, where wrong direction outpaced the right track of the country by 42 points but by 25 points for the state. In Montana’s 1st, there was a 35-point gap for the country and 15-point gap for the state. And in North Carolina’s 1st, it was a 35-point gap for the country and a 20-point gap for the country.
The only district where the outlook was similar was Oregon’s 5th. Voters had a pessimistic view about the direction of the country (27 percent right direction vs. 59 percent wrong direction) and the state (25 percent right direction vs. 58 percent wrong direction). That dissatisfaction at the local level helped Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer get elected in the 5th district in 2022 considering Democrats’ political preeminence in the state, but she is in one of the closest races in the country this cycle.
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