In the history of Gallup polling, Republicans have never held as wide a margin over Democrats as they do in an “unprecedented” poll of generic party preferences of registered voters released Monday.
The GOP leads Democrats by 10 points in Gallup’s generic weekly tracking of 2010 congressional voting preferences. Republicans took in 51 percent to the Democrats’ 41 percent among registered voters.
It’s the Republicans largest margin of the year and its largest margin over Democrats in Gallup’s history of tracking dating back to 1942.
In July of 1994 — the year of the Republican revolution swept the GOP into control of Congress — Republicans had their widest margin ever in this poll over Democrats, leading by 5 points. At this point in the election season in 1994, both Democrats and Republicans were tied at 46 percent in the generic trend poll.
“The last Gallup weekly generic ballot average before Labor Day underscores the fast-evolving conventional wisdom that the GOP is poised to make significant gains in this fall’s midterm congressional elections,” reports a summary of the results from Gallup.
Historically, Democrats have had the largest generic lead in the polling firm’s history. In 1974, they held a 32-point lead over Republicans during the Watergate scandal.