Already predicted GOP victories in next week's midterm elections may be inevitable as even disaffected voters are choosing Republicans, a
Washington Post/ABC News poll finds.
Voters who don't trust either party still plan to vote for Republicans on Nov. 4, the new poll, released Tuesday, shows.
Analyzing the results, The Post notes that Democrats are favored by 2 points – within the survey's margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points – when adult respondents are asked
which party they trust more to handle the country's problems.
But if you narrow the query to registered voters, the results are even for the GOP and Democrats at 39 percent each, with 3 percent saying "both" and 13 percent saying "neither," The Post notes.
Zeroing in on people likely to vote next Tuesday, 42 percent trust the Republicans more, while 37 percent trust the Democrats, the poll shows.
But of the 13 percent of likely voters who don't trust either political party, more than half plan to vote Republican, the poll shows.
Post political writer Philip Bump writes that distrustful voters may be casting "a protest vote," noting that the poll also shows a quarter of independent voters see their vote as expressing opposition to President Barack Obama, while half of Republicans and just 8 percent of Democrats think of their ballots that way.