politico thursday, september 16, 201032

5-point advantage, suggesting the party’s congressional fortunes aren’t nearly as grim as the media coverage might suggest.

In the West — defined as Alas-ka, California, Hawaii, Oregon and Washington — Democrats hold a blowout 51-31 generic ad-vantage. Those numbers, how-ever, are tempered by findings that should send shudders down the spines of Democrats in the Mountain West: In that eight-state region, where the party has made significant recent inroads, the GOP held a 24-point lead.

Overall, the likely voters polled said they anticipated Re-publicans will have a big night, picking up the 39 seats neces-sary to win the House (45-36, with 19 percent uncertain) and the 10 needed to recapture the Senate (46-37-17).

One reason may be the dispa-rate levels of voter enthusiasm. Ninety-five percent of those sur-veyed who usually vote Republi-can said they were extremely or very likely to vote in November. For usual Democratic voters, 87 percent said the same.

The poll also showed wide enthusiasm gaps between the youngest and oldest voters. Sev-enty-nine percent of voters ages

18 to 34 said they were extremely or very likely to vote, compared with 96 percent of those age 65 or older.

When broken down by race, the gap is equally noticeable — and politically consequential for the Democratic Party. Just 76 percent of African-Americans said they were extremely or very likely to vote, compared with 92 percent of whites.

The rest of the poll similarly offers reasons for hope and hand-wringing for both parties, including signs that the Demo-crats’ blame-Bush-first campaign on the economy is resonating but that the blame-Boehner-next campaign for everything else has a long way to go.

This is the first in a series of six bipartisan polls that will be conducted for POLITICO and the George Washington University as part of the nearly 20-year-old Battleground survey. The poll, which surveyed 1,000 likely vot-ers nationally between Sept. 7 and Sept. 9, was conducted and analyzed by two widely respect-ed pollsters, Democrat Celinda Lake of Lake Research Partners and Republican Ed Goeas of The Tarrance Group. It has a margin of error of 3.1 percent.

Other poll highlights:President Barack Obama is

not getting blamed for the terri-

ble economy. When asked who is most to blame, George W. Bush (25 percent), large financial firms (20 percent) and Congress (15 percent) topped the list. Obama was faulted by only 11 percent.

This helps explain why the White House continues to point the fin-ger at the previous administra-tion.

The vast majority (63 percent) feel the country is headed in the

wrong direction and hold unfa-vorable views of the jobs Republi-cans (59 percent) and Democrats (57 percent) are doing.

Most people either have never heard of House Minority Leader John Boehner or hold no opin-ion of him: Forty-five percent had never heard of him, and 19 percent didn’t have a take on the would-be speaker of the House. The White House and Democrats have spent considerable money and time trying to make Boehner the poster boy of the GOP, and this poll showed they still have their work cut out for them.

Both parties’ House leaders are unpopular. Just 31 percent had a favorable impression of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, compared with 52 percent who viewed her unfavorably. Boehner registered an even worse rating — just 16 percent favorable — but his unfavorable rating was 21 percent.

Forty-five percent approved of the job Obama has been do-ing, but 65 percent said they had a positive perception of him at a personal level. This suggests Obama has plenty of room to regain his political footing after the November elections.

That said, if a presidential election were held today, Obama would trail 46-42 against a ge-neric Republican candidate.

From poll on Page 1

Poll Gives Dems Some Reason for Hope in November

MORE OnlinE For full poll results and analysis from Republican pollster Ed Goeas and Democratic pollster Celinda Lake, visit www.politico.com.

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