Dems Won by 15 Points Among Those Who Decided in Last Week

UTICA, New York - Democrats did much better among voters who decided on their vote for Congress within the final week before the election, A post-election Zogby Interactive poll finds.

The poll of 2,185 voters reveals 8% made up their minds one week or less prior to Election Day. Of these voters, 51% voted for Democrats, 36% for Republicans and the remainder voted for neither major party candidate. Most of those who decided in the last week were independents (58%).

Republicans defeated Democrats 53%-44% among the 82% who decided their Congressional vote more than a month prior to the election, and 52%-43% among the 9% who decided two to three weeks before November 2.

Republicans also topped Democrats among those who voted prior to Election Day, 51%-45%. 

Pollster John Zogby: "Final appeals to voters by President Barack Obama and Democrats obviously did not prevent the Republicans from winning a big House majority and six seats in the Senate, but it may have averted even more GOP victories. With so many close races, those late deciding voters probably made the difference for some Democratic winners. However, the die was cast in favor of Republicans well before Election Day, and the only question for some time was just how big the GOP wave would be."

The interactive poll was conducted from Nov. 3-Nov. 5, 2010, and has a margin of error of +/-2.2%.  A sampling of Zogby International's online panel, which is representative of the adult population of the U.S., was invited to participate.  Slight weights were added to region, party, age, race, religion, gender and education to more accurately reflect the population.