Middle class gives Democrats hopes of victory

updated 4:26 p.m. ET Oct. 26, 2006

WASHINGTON - Middle-class voters who deserted the Democratic Party a dozen years ago are now giving the party its best chance to reclaim the House since the GOP swept Democrats from power in 1994.

Motivated by anger at President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress, 56 percent of likely voters said they would vote on Nov. 7 to send a Democrat to the House and 37 percent said they would vote Republican. Voters in the latest Associated Press-AOL News poll rated Iraq and the economy as their top issues.

"I don't care if I vote for Happy the Clown, just so it's not who's there now," said Mary Nyilas, 51, an independent voter from Cologne, N.J., who said she would do everything she could to "vote against the powers that put us in this situation" in Iraq.

Widening the gap
Less than two weeks before voters elect a new Congress, the poll showed Republicans are in jeopardy of losing their grip on the House after a dozen years in power. The survey found voters leaning considerably more toward Democrats in the final weeks of the campaign.

Interactive 2006 key races The races to watch.

In early October, Democrats had a 10 percentage-point advantage when voters were asked whether they would vote for the Democratic or Republican candidate in their congressional district. The Democratic edge is now 19 percentage points.

The AP-AOL News telephone poll of 2,000 adults, 970 of whom are likely voters, was conducted by Ipsos Oct. 20-25.

Dismissing talk of a sour outlook for the GOP, House Speaker Dennis Hastert on Thursday cited signs of a strong economy and rejected the Democratic argument that voters should fire him and his rank-and-file.

"Things are looking pretty good, and I don't think anybody would really want to change that at this time," he said in Aurora, Ill.

In the minority, Democrats need to gain 15 seats in the House and six in the Senate to win control of Congress. They are arguing for a change in leadership and trying to tap into intense public anxiety about the Iraq war as well as discontent with Bush and the Republicans in charge of the House and Senate.

The Democratic Revolution?
The 2006 election has been likened to 1994, when backlash against the controlling party - then the Democrats - triggered a change in power and ushered in an era of new rulers - in that case, the Republicans.

Twelve years later, the tables appear poised to turn - in part because, as an AP analysis shows, fickle middle-class voters are returning to the Democratic Party after abandoning it in 1994.

Back then, middle-class voters - those earning less than $75,000 a year and those who have graduated high school or have some college education - fled the Democrats in droves, helping Republicans capture dozens of Democratic-held House seats to seize control for the first time in decades.

Democrats recovered some of that lost ground in the following years, but they never fully regained their grasp on the middle class. In the intervening midterm elections, Democrats and Republicans have split the House vote among middle-income and middle-education groups.

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