Democrats Take 18-Point Lead In Midterm Matchup As Voters Are Eager To Punish GOP For Tax Scam

As Republicans celebrate their success in ramming their tax scam through Congress, the American people appear eager to punish them at the polls in next year’s midterm elections.

According to a CNN poll released Wednesday, Democrats lead the GOP by a whopping 18 points among registered voters – the largest lead they’ve held in two decade’s worth of midterm election cycles.

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That 18-point edge is the widest Democrats have held in CNN polling on the 2018 contests, and the largest at this point in midterm election cycles dating back two decades. The finding follows several other public polls showing large double-digit leads for Democrats on similar questions.

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Independent voters favor Democrats by a 16-point margin, 51% to 35%, similar to the 50% to 36% margin by which they favored Democrats in fall of 2005, ahead of Democrats’ 2006 recapturing of the House and Senate. The Democrats hold a larger lead overall now because Republicans make up a smaller share of the electorate than they did in 2005.

This massive national lead puts Democrats on a strong footing to regain control of the House of Representatives next fall. As FiveThirtyEight.com’s Nate Silver pointed out earlier this year, “Rough estimates suggest that in 2018, the Democrats may need to beat Republicans by 5 to 8 percentage points nationally to win a majority of House seats.”

It’ safe to say that an 18-point lead and supercharged enthusiasm among progressive voters give the Democrats a good chance of becoming the majority party in the lower chamber, and perhaps even the Senate.

Republicans are free to celebrate the Christmas present they gave to their donors and the wealthiest individuals and corporations, but come next year, they might be doing it as the minority party in Congress.

Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.