Leave your feedback Share Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/polls-show-voters-favor-change-of-iraq-strategy-prefer-democrats Email Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest Tumblr Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Transcript With the midterm elections less than a week away, polls show that voters support a change of U.S. strategy in Iraq and favor Democrats on a generic ballot. Andrew Kohut of the Pew Research Center discusses what Americans want on Election Day. Read the Full Transcript Notice: Transcripts are machine and human generated and lightly edited for accuracy. They may contain errors. JIM LEHRER: With five days to go before the midterm elections, what the latest polls have to say about the American voters' state of mind and inclination. Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, is here one again to sort through them for us.Andy, welcome. The big news seems to be in polls, at least, was today's New York Times-CBS poll. What was new and significant about it?ANDREW KOHUT, Pew Center for the People and the Press: Well, what struck me was the size of the Democratic margin. The numbers aren't getting any smaller. And there's a 52-to-34 percent margin favoring the Democrats, in terms of voting intentions. JIM LEHRER: And that's a generic question and a generic answer? ANDREW KOHUT: Generic question that asks people, when they go to the polls, are they going to vote for a Republican candidate or Democratic candidate in their district?Now, that's a big margin, 18 points, but we've collected — and we have a slide showing the last half a dozen polls conducted in the last 10 days. And there it is. And the CBS-New York Times is the biggest margin, but, you know, Newsweek has a 14-point margin, and FOX has one of the smaller ones, as we do, 11 points.But, you know, these are — to my mind, these are box car numbers. We have not seen that kind of preference for one party, especially the Democrats, since the 1980s or before. There was a four-point margin in the actual popular vote in 2002. In '98, I think it was only about two points plus Republican. This is new terrain in the modern era.