Trump approval near record low ahead of elections

President Donald Trump’s approval rating held near a record low as a broad swath of the US electorate saw their vote in Tuesday’s congressional elections as a way to oppose the Republican president, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll completed on Monday. The results of the five-day nationwide poll also showed signs the race between Democrats and Republicans could be tightening ahead of Election Day.

Some 46% of registered voters in the poll said they would pick Democrats in congressional elections, compared to 38% who picked Republicans, in what is known as a “generic ballot” question. That 8 percentage point advantage for Democrats was narrower than in a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted a week earlier, when Democrats led by 11 points. Generic ballot polls are national polls that ​provide an overall view of which party voters would like to see in charge in Congress. While these polls provide a ​view of national public sentiment, they do not capture the nuances of the state-by-state and district-by-district contests that determine control of the US Senate and US ‌House, contests ⁠in which Republicans hold some structural advantages. Some 32% of respondents said…