U.S. independent voters favor Democrats: Poll

Two weeks before the midterm congressional elections, a new poll has found that more independent voters in the United States favor Democrats than Republicans on Iraq and other major issues.

The Washington Post-ABC News poll, published on Tuesday, suggested that Republicans were losing the battle to impress independent voters, who overwhelmingly preferred to see Democrats take over the House in November.

According to the poll, the independent voters surveyed planned to support Democratic candidates over Republicans by roughly 2 to 1 - 59 percent to 31 percent - the largest margin in any Washington Post-ABC News poll this year. Forty-five percent said that it would be good if Democrats recaptured the House majority, as opposed to the 10 percent who said no.

Independents are poised to play a pivotal role in next month's elections because Democrats and Republicans are basically united behind candidates of their own parties.

Ninety-five percent of Democrats said they would support Democratic candidates for the House, while slightly fewer Republicans, 88 percent, said they planned to vote for their party's candidates.

The new poll underscored how much of a drag the Iraq war threatened to be on Republican candidates in competitive races. With debate underway in Washington about possible course changes in Iraq, Americans cited the war as the most important issue in determining their vote next month, more often, than any other issue. Those favoring Democrats are leading with 76 percent while the Republican supporters are lagging behind with a mere 21 percent.

The poll found that independents were highly pessimistic about the Iraq war and the overall state of the country. Just 23 percent said that the country was heading in the right direction, compared with the 75 percent who said things had gone off track. Only a third said that the Iraq war was worth fighting.

Independent voters might strongly favor Democrats, but their vote appeared motivated more by dissatisfaction with Republicans than by enthusiasm for the opposition party, according to the poll.

About half of those independents who said that they planned to vote for Democrat in their district, said that they were doing so primarily to vote against the Republican candidate rather than to affirmatively support the Democratic candidate.

The survey of 1,200 adults was conducted from Thursday through Sunday and had a margin of sampling error at plus or minus three percentage points.

Source: Xinhua