Republicans have rebounded to a 4-point lead over Democrats on the generic congressional ballot, according to a new Suffolk University-USA Today poll.
Forty-nine percent of likely voters said they would vote for the Republican candidate if elections for Congress were held today, compared to 45 percent support for the Democratic candidate, the poll found.
The GOP’s advantage marks a turnaround from the pollster’s past surveys over the summer, when Democrats saw gains as they latched on to the Supreme Court’s overturning of abortion protections.
The pollster’s late July national survey found Democrats with a 4-point lead, garnering 44 percent support to Republicans’ 40 percent. In the days before the court’s abortion ruling, Democrats and Republicans were nearly tied.
But now, as voters increasingly express anxiety about the economy after the release of worse-than-expected inflation reports and increasing predictions of a looming recession, Republicans appear to be making new gains.
The new poll found that 56 percent of respondents indicated inflation mattered to them more than abortion, while 40 percent said abortion was more important. Four percent were undecided.
The new survey also differed by including a sample of likely voters, while the previous surveys polled a broader group of registered voters.
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Other surveys, including a recent poll from Siena College and The New York Times, similarly show Republicans gaining on the generic ballot.
That pollster’s October survey found Republicans held a 4-point advantage on the generic ballot among likely voters. That poll had previously found a 1-point advantage for Democrats in September.
The poll was conducted from Oct. 19 to Oct. 24 through landline and cellphone interviews with 1,000 likely voters. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.