July 20, 2010 05:34 PM UTC

Gallup's Generic Ballot Trends Democrat, Independents Lead Way

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• by: Colorado Pols

Considering the fever pitch the GOP has been at for months now, in hope of irretrievably poisoning the critical independent bloc of voters against Democratic candidates and making big gains in the upcoming election, this memo from respected polling firm Gallup isn’t a good sign–especially in Colorado, where unaffiliated voters are if anything more decisive than in many other states.

In the same week the U.S. Senate passed a major financial reform bill touted as reining in Wall Street, Democrats pulled ahead of Republicans, 49% to 43%, in voters’ generic ballot preferences for the 2010 congressional elections.

The Democrats’ six-point advantage in Gallup Daily interviewing from July 12-18 represents the first statistically significant lead for that party’s candidates since Gallup began weekly tracking of this measure in March…

With Republicans’ and Democrats’ support for their own party’s candidates holding steady in the low 90s this past week, independents are primarily responsible for Democrats’ improved positioning. Thirty-nine percent of independents favor the Democratic candidate in their district, up from 34% — although slightly more, 43%, still favor the Republican.

Democrats understand that these numbers are volatile, and tied to action in Congress as well as the news of the day in general. Still, it’s definitely trending the right way to mitigate widely-anticipated Democratic losses this November. As for why this is happening, Gallup points to the recent passage of financial industry reforms that were favored by solid majorities of voters.

It’s our opinion that growing fatigue over the GOP’s nonstop campaign of denunciation and hyperbolic invective against Democrats is also reflected in these shifting numbers, but it doesn’t look like Gallup explored that. We’ve said repeatedly that at some point before November, voters would take a more rational look at the last year and a half, and realize that they are neither being forced to move to a commune nor to pull the plug on Grandma after all.

The more rational the debate becomes between now and November, the more likely it becomes that these trend lines will hold–exactly what Democrats want, and what Republicans do not. A rational debate will not look favorably upon, for example, Colorado Senate candidates trying to one-up each other agreeing with Tom Tancredo that Obama is a bigger threat than nuclear war.

That’s our theory, anyway. What do you think?