MOSCOW, October 15 (RIA Novosti) - The US Republican party is likely to gain seats at the upcoming midterm congressional election; however, a fluctuating outcome of ongoing international crises leave room for surprise, a poll by The Wall Street Journal and NBC News released Wednesday said.
A survey of 1,000 voters showed that 46 percent would prefer the GOP to dominate Congress, as opposed to 44 percent of pro-Democratic respondents. In addition, a striking majority of 83 percent of those questioned expressed disapproval of the US legislative body's work.
The Democrats and the Republicans currently hold 53 and 45 seats in the US Senate respectively. The biennial vote, scheduled for November has 36 out of 100 seats in the higher parliamentary house up for grabs. The Democratic Party is defending 21 of them, while the Republicans have 12 senator positions at stake. Thus, considering two independent senators, the Republicans need to win six seats in order to achieve an absolute majority in the Senate.
There have only been three precedents in America's post-Civil war history when an incumbent president's party actually gained seats in both houses of the US Congress: during the Great Depression in 1934 and during the 1998 Midterms, which followed an attempt to impeach President Bill Clinton by the Republicans and after the 2002 elections held a year after the September 11, 2011 terrorist attacks. Therefore. statistical factors and opinion polls favor the GOP; however, according to a Republican pollster, who helped carry out the Wall Street Journal-NBC survey, the elections' outcome might not be as foreseeable as it seems.
"Something weird will happen on election night. 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," Bill McInturff said.
Foreign affairs are seemingly going to make a significant impact on the 2014 Midterms. The US-led campaign against the Islamic State (IS) extremist group in Iraq and Syria is one of three issues respondents believe are important in the upcoming election. Six out of ten surveyed consider the military action countering the Islamic State advance a US national interest.
Only two percent of respondents had not heard of the Ebola virus outbreak in West Africa – with the poll held when the news of an American nurse getting infected with the deadly virus was just breaking.
Fred Yang, a Democrat who had taken part in the poll organization, told The Wall Street Journal "with all that is happening internationally, there can easily be an event that will redefine or define this election. This is a cake that's not quite baked yet."
On November 4, the United States will hold elections for the House of Representatives and one third of the Senate. The same day, a significant portion of American voters will choose new governors, state legislatures and city mayors.
