voter unease with donald trump doesn't appear to be producing the kind of backlash against his party<u+2019>s congressional candidates that would strip republicans of a majority in the house, a new wall street journal/nbc news poll finds. when asked which party they would want to control congress after next month<u+2019>s elections, 46% of the registered voters in the survey favored a democratic-led congress and 44% backed a gop-led congress. by historical standards, that 2-point advantage for democrats doesn't signal the kind of wave that would bring the party a big gain of house seats. the last two times that democrats picked up a large number of house seats, in 2006 and 2008, they led by 10 points or more on the <u+201d>congressional control<u+201d> question. coming amid weak support for mr. trump, the numbers suggest that many voters are ready to back one party for president and another in down-ballot races, a reversal of recent trends. such <u+201d>ticket-splitting<u+201d> has declined in recent years as the nation<u+2019>s voters have become more sharply partisan. hillary clinton <u+2019>s lead over mr. trump widened over the past month in journal/nbc news polling, while her party<u+2019>s advantage on who should control congress narrowed. mrs. clinton led mr. trump by 11 percentage points among likely voters, 48% to 37%, in the survey conducted last week, compared with a 6-point advantage in september . both margins are larger than the democrats<u+2019> lead on which party should control congress, which stood at 4 points in august, 3 points in september and 2 points in the new survey. one reason for the disparity may be that voters want republicans to retain some power in washington in the case that mrs. clinton is elected. the new journal/nbc news survey asked voters whether they would more likely back a republican candidate for congress to be <u+201d>a check-and-balance to hillary clinton and congressional democrats,<u+201d> or a democratic candidate for congress who would help mrs. clinton pass her agenda. by a 13-point margin, registered voters said they would rather back a gop candidate to act as a check on mrs. clinton, 53% to 40%. that result is another sign that many voters could opt this time to support one party at the top of the ticket and another lower on the ballot. in most years, the survey question of which party should control congress has been a good indicator of whether voters are ready to change the power balance in the house. but the signals work differently for each party. usually, it takes a big democratic advantage on that question to signal a large wave in the democrats<u+2019> favor, while republicans have often gained seats when they had only a modest lead on the <u+201c>congressional control<u+201c> question. that is partly because republicans use their voters more efficiently than do democrats: democratic voters in some states tend to be concentrated in a small number of districts, while republican voters are distributed in ways that allow the party to carry a larger number of house districts. the last two times the democrats picked up large numbers of seats, they had a double-digit advantage on the <u+201d>congressional control<u+201d> question. in 2006, voters wanted a democratic-led congress by 10 percentage points in journal/nbc polling, and the party gained 30 seats that year. in 2008, voters wanted a democratic-led congress by 11 percentage points, and the party gained more than 20 seats. by contrast, republicans had only a small lead on the <u+201d>congressional control<u+201d> question in 1994 and 2010, when they picked up dozens of seats and regained a majority in the house. the gop picked up more than 50 seats in 1994, when they had only a 4-point lead on the <u+201d>congressional control<u+201d> question. the party had a lead of only 2 points in 2010, when it gained 63 seats. the journal/nbc news survey was conducted oct. 10-13 and included 1,000 registered voters. the margin of error for that group was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points. the margin of error for 905 likely voters in the survey was 3.26 percentage points. write to aaron zitner at aaron.zitner@wsj.com
republican congressional candidates seemingly unaffected by trump unease  - wsj
aaron zitner