Latest Gallup poll: Barack Obama will need a miracle to avoid Jimmy Carter's fate

OUCH!

This week’s historic Gallup poll will have sent a shiver through the White House at the end of a summer of discontent, and is yet another key indicator that President Obama is likely to end up a lame duck president following the mid-term elections in November. The latest Gallup poll shows the Republicans in pole position to retake the House of Representatives, with other surveys suggesting the GOP will make big gains in the Senate as well, a scenario which would have been unthinkable at the start of the year.

The USA Today/Gallup survey shows Republicans leading the Democrats among registered voters by 51 percent to 41 percent, the largest lead for the GOP “in Gallup’s history of tracking the midterm generic ballot in Congress”, which dates back all the way to 1942, when FDR was president. According to Gallup, Republicans are now twice as likely as Democrats to be “very” enthusiastic about voting. While cautioning that “change is possible between now and election day”, Gallup sees strong potential for sweeping Republican gains and the retaking of the House:

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. Gallup’s generic ballot has historically proven an excellent predictor of the national vote for Congress, and the national vote in turn is an excellent predictor of House seats won and lost. Republicans’ presumed turnout advantage, combined with their current 10-point registered-voter lead, suggests the potential for a major “wave” election in which the Republicans gain a large number of seats from the Democrats and in the process take back control of the House.