Generic Ballot 2000-2014

I've been tinkering with the generic ballot releases I could get my hands on for the last seven elections, and comparing them, if possible, to the current batch of releases.
After a brief correction from Nate Cohn of NYT's Upshot, here's the draft version which we will update every Thursday at @aoshqdd. Please note that this week's Rasmussen release has not been updated, it will on Thursday, as will any other pollster who drops anything between now and then:

What you are looking at is a snapshot of where each pollster found the generic Congressional ballot at this point (draft set for September 18th) in the last seven elections and today. Emphasis on the generic ballot isn't advisable when determining the outcome of Senate races, as there is a clear divergence in who leads in the state-by-state, and who leads by this national metric.

Some interesting things: quite a lot of pollsters had shifted into Likely Voter mode at this point in 2000, 2004, 2008 and 2010, but hardly any had done so in 2002, 2006, or 2012. In fact, in the year 2006, nearly all polling released to this point wasn't even of registered voters, but adults.

posted by CAC at 03:53 PM

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