WSJ Poll: Republicans Hold Advantage as Midterms Near

Republicans remain in a favorable position heading into the midterm election, but the outlook is unsettled amid unusually low voter interest, high dissatisfaction with leaders in Washington and a reordering of issues on voters’ minds, a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll finds.

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Voters’ excitement about the campaign hasn’t increased as Election Day approaches, defying the trend in recent years. The share of voters who see the country on the wrong track has reached the highest level ever in a midterm-election year. And an election that once was thought to hinge on health care and other domestic issues is increasingly shadowed by international crises that weren’t on the radar just a few months ago.

Pollsters for both parties who conducted the survey predict Republican gains in the House and Senate, as the poll found that likely voters prefer a GOP-controlled Congress over a Democratic one, 46% to 44%. But they also said the unusually volatile environment, combined with the large number of close races for control of the Senate and governors’ offices, raised the potential for unexpected results.

“Something weird will happen on election night,” predicted Bill McInturff, the Republican pollster who conducted the survey with Democrat Fred Yang. “When you are sitting on top of an unstable, ticked-off electorate, there is a joker in the deck that ought to give us a little bit of caution.”

The slight preference for a GOP Congress comes amid continued low job-approval ratings for President Barack Obama, including a record-low 31% approval for his handling of foreign policy among registered voters, with 61% disapproving.

But the GOP advantage is narrower than the 50%-to-43% edge the Republicans enjoyed at this point before the 2010 wave that gave them a majority in the House. The poll finds that half of all voters have negative impressions of the GOP—a level substantially higher than in September and close to the record registered during last fall’s government shutdown.

One of the wild cards in the final weeks of the midterm campaign is the rise of foreign affairs as an issue on voters’ minds. The fight against Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria ranked third among issues that voters said would be important in their vote for Congress, beyond job creation and breaking the partisan gridlock in Washington.

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