In National Journal, Kevin Friedel talks about the Republicans’ improvement on the generic ballot question on the NPR survey.

Three recent polls show the GOP gaining ground on the generic ballot question, starting with an NPR survey conducted by Public Opinion Strategies (R) and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research (D) that put the two parties exactly square: 42 percent for each. Independents, however, preferred the GOP, 39-30. Democrats led slightly overall, but trailed even worse among independents, in a Fox News/Opinion Dynamics poll out last week that phrased the generic ballot question in terms of curtailing Democratic power.

The RedState blog also mentions the National Journal article here.

iReport mentions a Public Opinion Strategies/Hart Research poll commissioned by the Peter G. Peterson Foundation to determine Americans’ opinions of current fiscal policies.

Peter G. Peterson Foundation President David M. Walker was joined by Sen. Judd Gregg (R-NH), Rep. Jim Cooper (D-TN) and Rep. Frank R. Wolf (R-VA) to discuss new findings of the most comprehensive study of public attitudes toward America’s fiscal policies since the economic downturn…

The survey was conducted among 1,008 registered voters from February 18-23 by leading pollsters Peter D. Hart Research Associates and Public Opinion Strategies and has a margin of error of +/-3.1%.

Peter Roff of U.S. News and World Report quotes Gene Ulm’s post about the Misery Index.

So what does this have to do with 2009? Pollster Gene Ulm, of the firm Public Opinion Strategies, recently published a memo that explains the potential political ramifications of the “Misery Index,” now 8.34 and rising with no sign it will peak anytime soon, in the upcoming off-year election.

“Of the 15 midterm elections held since 1950, 13 have been ‘change’ elections,” says Ulm, meaning the voters used the election as an opportunity to curb the behavior of the White House, to pull it back toward the center. The more prominent examples of change elections included the Republican gains in 1966 and 1994—which put a brake on the Johnson and Clinton legislative agendas—and the strong showing by the Democrats in 1986 and 2006, which effectively sapped the energy from the Reagan and George W. Bush presidencies.