Ian Patrick, FISM News

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With the midterms less than a month away, each political party will be hoping to score some last-minute points and gain a favorable lead. A poll released this week shows that Republicans are gaining a little bit of voter confidence as the Democrats lose some of theirs.

Conducted by CBS in conjunction with YouGov, the new poll displays how economic woes have played against the Democrats, even as they try to make abortion their main focus for the upcoming elections.

CBS anticipates that this poll, conducted October 12 through October 14, may result in Republicans gaining the majority in the House of Representatives.

“Today’s views of the economy have gotten worse amid continuing inflation, a volatile stock market, and — in a stark reversal from August — people are reporting gas prices are rising in their neighborhoods,” CBS writes. Because of all of this, voters are feeling as though the economy should take precedence in their vote since so many are feeling its sting.

The poll found that 65% of likely voters view the economy as getting worse, compared to 15% who say it is getting better and 20% who say the economy has stayed the same for some time.

Almost three-quarters of likely voters said that the economic situation has been at least somewhat difficult on their families, including 35% who said it was “a financial hardship” and 38% merely said their situations were “difficult.” Another 22% said the economic situation was an “inconvenience” and merely 5% said their finances weren’t at all affected by current economic conditions.

Inflation, according to the voters in the poll, is caused mostly by supply and manufacturing issues (63%), global and international issues (58%), and Democratic Party policies (47%).

Importantly, 63% said that gas prices have increased in their area over the last few weeks. Only 18% reported the same prices and only 13% said prices are declining.

In addition, 47% of voters predicted the economy will be in a recession by next year, 24% predicted it will slow but not enter a recession, 15% said it will stay steady, 11% said it will likely grow, and 3% said it will boom.

Still, 45% of likely voters called their financial situations “fairly good” for the time being. But the troubles brought by inflation and increased energy prices will weigh heavily on the ballot.

Nearly half (48%) of voters said that Democrat policies focusing on the economy have been “harmful to the economy” as opposed to just 29% who claim their policies were “helpful” instead.

When broken down by political party identification, obviously more Republicans said Democrat policies were harmful while more Democrat voters said their policies were helpful. Independents, however, prove to show where allegiances may lie in the future.

More than twice the number of independents saw Democrat economic policies in a not-so-favorable light. Only 22% of independents said the Democrat policies were helpful, compared to 47% who said they were harmful.

Meanwhile, if Republicans were to take control of the House this November, 42% of voters expect their policies to help the economy compared to 33% who expect their policies to hurt it.

President Biden is also partly to blame for the economic situation, at least according to more than 70% of voters. Specifically, 45% say he is a “great deal” to blame for the current economy while 26% say he is “somewhat” to blame.

While the economy has played a huge role in this poll, abortion also continues to show prevalence as an important topic for the midterms. However, voters seem to be losing interest in keeping abortion rights.

According to this poll, 54% of voters think abortion is very important while 23% find it somewhat important and another 23% find it either not too important or not important at all.

But back in September’s Battleground Tracker, 59% felt abortion was important while 21% felt it was somewhat important and 20% thought it wasn’t too important or important at all.

When looking at the breakdown of this issue, 77% of Democrat voters in both September and October felt the issue of abortion was very important. While the left finds the issue to be important for the midterms, independents and Republicans are losing interest.

In October, 50% of independents agreed that abortion is very important compared to 56% of independents in September. Similarly, 35% of Republicans in October thought the issue was very important compared to 44% in September.

As phrased by CBS News: “The Democratic campaigns want it to be about abortion, and for so many voters it already is, but over the last month, Democrats haven’t grown the number of voters who see abortion as very important.”

With all this in mind, October’s Battleground Tracker also asked voters who belonged to a political party if they would consider voting for a candidate in the opposite party. 11% of Democrats said they would consider it, compared to 8% of Republicans.

This poll gathered answers from 2,068 recipients and contains a 2.4% margin of error.