In a stunning reversal of fortunes for the midterm elections, Republicans are now ahead for the first time, says a new Reuters poll.
"Say good-bye to the D-advantage in the generic ballot," announced Chris Kahn, the polling editor for Thomson Reuters.
"Our latest Reuters/Ipsos poll shows that registered voters as likely to support Republicans as Democrats," he added.
The poll question, known as the generic ballot, asks participants to say whether they would vote for a Democrat or a Republican if the midterm vote were to be held today. While Democrats have been favored for months, support for Republicans has grown to the point where they are now leading.
When the results are filtered for just registered voters, Republicans see a 2 percentage point advantage, from 39 percent to 36.7 percent. While the difference isn't a great one, it is when compared to the past advantage Democrats had seen. In December, Democrats held a 14.5 percentage point advantage among registered voters — 46.7 percent to 32.3 percent.
Kahn tweeted about the "vanishing D-lead," saying, "over the past few days we've seen a drop in support for D-candidates among D voters and an increase in support for R-candidates among R and I voters."
The Democrats, who have been excited about a "blue wave" that has shown a major advantage for them in the past, need only 3 seats to flip the U.S. Senate to their side, and 23 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
