There was a very interesting article on "The Daily Show" a couple of days ago

[Harry Hayfield]

about the polling numbers on the generic GOP vs Dem Congress ballot. The article was presented by Dave "How many Dave Gormans are there in the world" Gorman and seemed to suggest that the polls were quite frankly all over the place and that sometime in early April this year they agreed on a Dem lead of 13% (and have failed to agree on a lead since).

Does this mean that there is no central organisation that monitors US polls and if not, are these polls worthless?

[Whacker77]

I saw the tail end of that piece and I actually think they did a disservice to the polling being done.  I'm a conservative and will always be somewhat dubious of "generic numbers", but I think they have been fairly consistent this year.  The Democrats started with a big lead and it's narrowed slightly, but with the exception of a few polls, the polls have been consistent.

[Democratic Hawk]

Generic congressional polling may show that the Dems have a consistent lead but for all we know that lead could be Democrats racking up ever huge majorities in districts they currently hold, while the GOP could be holding their ground in many key toss-up districts or it could mean that the Democrats are on course for a slight or solid win overall. There are a range of possibilities

The thing is even when the generic polls showed a narrowing of the Democratic advantage and thus some movement towards the GOP, which seems to have passed (for now), it did not seem to be reflected greatly in the district-to-district polling

From what I've read, the opinion seems to be that the Democrats need to be around 7-points clear of the Republicans nationally come November 9 to stand a decent shot at gaining the House. Of course, whether the Democrats gain or not will largely hinge on local issues, just as much, if not more, than the broader national climate

This election is going to throw up one or two surprises

Dave