High Hopes on Right as Voters Swing Back to GOP

Republican supporters return to the fold

A new NBC/WSJ poll has a couple of surprises: offshore drilling remains extremely popular despite the oil spill media frenzy and "nearly two-thirds" of Americans support the Arizona immigration law despite believing that it will "lead to the discrimination of Latino immigrants who reside in the U.S. legally." But the section that's really got people talking has to do with Republican and Democratic support numbers, neatly summed up by the Wall Street Journal in the headline, "Voters Shifting to GOP."

• 'Good News with a Caveat for the GOP,' decides conservative Dan Riehl. "The most consistent number over four years," he notices, "is voter dissatisfaction with both parties in Washington." Thus, the GOP has "tremendous opportunity in 2010. But that is all it is, an opportunity. If they fail to take advantage of it and be responsive to the people, they will soon be abandoned, yet, again."

• 'Epitaph for the Great Liberal Realignment of 2008'  That's how Hot Air's Allahpundit interprets a question asking for respondents' reasons for preferring a Republican-controlled Congress (64% say it's because they oppose Obama and the Democrats). The big news here, he thinks, is that Republican supporters are returning to the cause not because they're fond of the GOP but because they really dislike the Democrats.

• 2010 Elections Shaping Up  "The findings," write The Wall Street Journal's Peter Wallsten, Naftali Bendavid, and Jean Spencer in their analysis, "suggest that public opinion has hardened in advance of the 2010 elections, making it tougher for Democrats to translate their legislative successes, or a tentatively improving U.S. economy, into gains among voters." The feelings of independents and suburban women, in particular, have shifted from where they were around the 2008 election.

• Basically, Things Are the Same as They Were, says Mark Murray in the NBC writeup, meaning that things have changed little in the past few months. Republicans have the most "enthusiasm" heading into the midterms. But the president's numbers, oddly, perhaps, are pretty good:

Obama's overall approval rating sits at 50 percent, a two-point increase from March.

Also, the approval of his handling of the economy is now a net-positive 48 percent to 46 percent, versus his net-negative 47 percent to 50 percent rating from two months ago.