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Poll puts Democrats far ahead
22/10/2006 08:09 - (SA)
Washington - More than half of Americans, 55%, would like to see Democrats take control of Congress, according to a poll by Newsweek magazine released on Saturday.
The poll of 1 000 likely voters found that 55% would choose a Democrat to represent their district if the vote were held now, and 37% said they would vote Republican.
This includes 31% of white evangelical Christians, an increase of 6 points among that strongly Republican group over the 2004 elections.
"Similarly, Democrats now lead among white Catholics, a group that went for President George W Bush in the 2004 presidential election," Newsweek said in a statement.
The poll, which had a margin of error of 4 percentage points, found that 44 percent of white Catholics planned to vote Democrat and 42% planned to vote Republican.
The poll found that 57% of those surveyed disapprove of Bush's job performance and just 35% approve. And it found that 67% are dissatisfied with the direction in which things are moving in the United States.
While 65% of those polled felt the United States was losing ground in Iraq, only 31% said the issue was the most important factor behind their vote this year for members of Congress.
About 18% said the economy was most important while 16% said healthcare was most important to them.
But 74% said a top priority for Congress should be to make changes to allow the government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices for seniors, and this included 70% of Republicans.
And 68% of those polled said raising the minimum wage should also be a top priority.
Of those sampled, 282 identified themselves as Republicans, 349 as Democrats and 330 as Independents.
- Reuters
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