The Republican Party’s favorability ratings are at a seven-year high, according to a new poll.
Forty-five percent of adults now perceive the GOP in a positive light, Gallup found Monday. That figure represents the party’s highest rating since January 2011, after it took back the House following the 2010 midterm elections. It’s nearly a double-digit percentage-point improvement from 2017.
Just slightly fewer adults have a favorable view of the Democratic Party, Gallup also found.
[Also read: Surge in GOP voter enthusiasm, ‘nearly matching’ Democrats]
There has only been one other point in time during the past decade when the Republican Party was more popular than its Democratic counterpart. That was in November 2014, when the GOP flipped the Senate and bolstered its majority in the House.
The upward trend was driven by how Republicans and independents who lean toward the party see the GOP, while the way Democrats feel about their own party has remained steady. Republican support from those two groups since last September has ballooned by 18 percentage points.
The research’s findings, however, contradict a series of polls that show Democrats having a substantial advantage on generic House ballots ahead of November’s elections. NBC News and the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday Democratic congressional candidates have a 12 percentage point lead among registered voters.
Gallup surveyed 1,035 adults from across the U.S. between Sept. 4 and Sept. 12 via cellphones and landlines. Its outcomes have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
