A new poll of “battleground” districts:
A new survey by Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research in the 40 most marginal Democratic seats shows Democratic incumbents holding strong in the territory where nearly all expect Republicans to reclaim lost ground. With Congress poised to vote on the president’s budget, the Democratic incumbents are winning over 50 percent of the vote – stable over the last three months – and hold a double-digit lead against their generic challengers even in the 20 most difficult seats. Meanwhile, in the 15 most marginal Republican districts the incumbents are far from safe. They beat their generic Democratic challengers by just 6 points and fail to top 50 percent in the vote (48 to 42 percent). Republicans are still on defense while President Obama remains very popular across all of these districts. …
This memo is based on a survey of 1,500 likely voters in the 40 most competitive Democratic-held districts and the 15 most marginal Republican-held districts conducted for Democracy Corps by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research April 16-21, 2009.
Interesting stuff. Some hard numbers from the survey (PDF):
• Obama approval (all districts): 55-35
• Democratic incumbents: 52-39
• Republican incumbents: 48-42
Dem incumbents were tested against generic Republicans and vice-versa, so it’s an apples-to-apples comparison – and not a good one for the GOP. Obama’s approval, interestingly, was basically the same in D and R districts, even in the “Tier 1” most vulnerable Dem seats which went to McCain by an average of six points.
The full memo is here (PDF), and the list of districts polled is here (PDF).