Newly released polling shows bad news for Democrats ahead of the November 8 Midterm Election, with the GOP holding a strong 49-45 lead on a generic ballot. Since September, that represents a shift from Democrats who were previously leading Republicans by a single point on the same poll. Leftist strategists suggest that the major shift is due to Democrats peaking too early. Now, Democrats grapple with plummeting poll numbers as Republicans are poised to take back control of both chambers of Congress.

The Hill reports:

Ethan Winter, an analyst at the progressive group Data for Progress, said the Democrats’ outlook improved over the summer as the Supreme Court decision striking down Roe v. Wade coincided with falling gas prices and economic reports that indicated inflation was cooling.

“The inflation outlook improved a little bit as gas prices fell but then got worse again, and momentum this cycle has tracked with these sort of baseline economic indicators,” Winter said.

Winter also noted that Democrats began spending on advertisements in key battleground states earlier than Republicans, leading some Senate candidates in particular to open up polling leads that have since dissipated in states such as Pennsylvania and Wisconsin as Republicans went on the air with their own ads.

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Those [Summer] polls spurred confidence among Democratic leaders that the party was in position to not just to stave off big Republican gains but perhaps even add to its majority in the House and Senate despite overwhelming historical trends that the president’s party tends to lose seats in midterm elections.

Winter said, “Before this summer, the hard data out of the New Jersey and Virginia governor elections, especially, and the specials before Dobbs indicated that Democrats would suffer a rout at the midterms,” adding, “And the polling to date suggests that wave has likely been headed off.”