Mediaboss Marketing

By Jeremy Diamond, CNN

updated 10:05 AM EDT, Tue September 30, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Washington (CNN) -- Five weeks before the November midterm elections, voters give Democrats an edge over Republicans, according to a CNN/ORC poll released Tuesday.

But the poll also indicates most of Democrats' gains are coming from the Northeast and not from the parts of the country where they're locked in tight contests that could give Republicans control of the Senate.

In a generic ballot among likely voters, Democrats edged out Republicans 47-45%, a 6-point swing from a CNN poll three weeks ago when likely voters favored the Republicans by a 4-point margin. The Democrats' advantage is within the poll's 3.5% margin of error.

The "generic ballot" question which asks Americans to choose between an unnamed Democrat and an unnamed Republican in their vote for U.S. House, suggests a shift toward the Democrats nationally, if not in key races in key states.

The poll comes a week after the U.S. launched airstrikes against ISIS in Syria, and while poll respondents overwhelmingly think the economy is the more important issue, they gave Congress low marks for how it handled the ISIS threat and have more faith in President Barack Obama than GOP leaders to set the military policy to deal with the militant Islamist group.

"That may explain why the Democrats have gained strength on the national "generic ballot" question," CNN Polling Director Keating Holland said.

Democrats gained the most ground among men and independent voters, two key groups that could help Democrats in competitive races this November. Men took a 7-point swing toward Democrats from the previous poll, bringing the party within 6 points of Republicans' 49% support.

View post:
CNN Poll: Big swing for Democrats but not where they need it