Gallup: “The economy, healthcare and the situation in Iran lead in importance to U.S. voters in this year’s election, among 11 issues rated. Half of registered voters say the economy and healthcare are extremely important to their vote, and 47% say the same about Iran.”

Ed Kilgore: “Midterm elections are typically referenda on the performance and popularity of whoever happens to occupy the White House. In the case of the 2026 midterms, it’s fair to say that no president ever has gone to a greater effort than Donald Trump to personalize an election in which he is not on the ballot.”

“For one thing, he has spent an entire decade molding the Republican Party in his image, purging or beating intra-party critics into submission, with his triumphant 2024 comeback and vengeful second-term agenda sealing the deal. For another he’s been omnipresent during the midterm battle, from his very personal direction of entirely unprecedented mid-decade House gerrymandering efforts to his pursuit of such unhelpful policy initiatives as a war of choice with Iran, all punctuated by his ubiquitous rallies.”

“So as the 2026 campaign comes to its end, it’s worth a final look at the president’s job-approval numbers for a sense of what he brings to the table in the penultimate national election of his career in public office.”

The Hotline: “In 2018, the polls that showed Democratic gubernatorial nominees leading in places like Florida, Iowa, and Ohio, tightened or plateaued in the closing days of the election before the Democrats ultimately lost—despite a blue wave year.”

“Eight years later Republican strategists told Hotline they aren’t seeing the same leveling out or rebounding in the polls in the final weeks, a stark warning sign in an already difficult election year.”

Said pollster Evan Roth Smith: “There’s an enormous amount of stability in the polling right now… The polling so far has not shown that down the stretch, large numbers of reluctant Republican voters are coming home in the way that Republicans have hoped they would.”

Gallup: “Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, record-low shares of U.S. registered voters say they would reelect their own representative or most members of Congress. For the first time in a final pre-midterm reading, less than half of voters (43%) think their own representative deserves another term, while 15% say the same for most members of Congress.”

Aaron Blake: “House Democrats appear to be flirting with one of the biggest popular vote wins in decades.”

“The CNN Poll of Polls shows them leading the so-called ‘generic ballot’ by 9 points, thanks in large part to President Donald Trump’s historic unpopularity. The last time either party won the House popular vote by at least 10 points in a midterm was in 1986.”

“America’s political class is hurtling toward an election that some fear could turn into yet another public opinion polling flop,” Politico reports.

“Enter the prediction markets.”

“Wall Street’s buzziest startups — Kalshi and Polymarket chiefly among them — have long held themselves up as paragons of the forecasting business, arguing that voters will be more truthful with money on the line. Now, the midterm elections are about to test whether their predictive chops hold up when on display.”

Nate Silver: “Most analysts seem to have little to no confidence in the polling, but maybe they should. Polls in the past two midterms were pretty accurate and unbiased. More important, they may not be projecting anything all that remarkable. ‘Waves’ are very normal in the midterms and almost the default outcome.”

“You might expect a bigger-than-average wave given Trump’s approval numbers, gas prices, Iran and Epstein. I could absolutely see the polls being wrong again, especially in the Midwest, where they have overestimated Democrats in the past. But polling error can run either way; I could imagine Republican turnout collapsing, giving Democrats an even bigger rout.”

G. Elliot Morris: “According to our combined polling data, 45% of undecided voters name prices and inflation as the most important problem facing the country, and another 18% pick jobs and the economy. That’s 63% naming prices or the economy, compared with 48% of voters who say they’ve already decided for whom and whether to vote.”

“On the relative prioritization of almost every issue, undecided voters look more like voters who have already decided to vote for Democrats than those who say they’ll vote Republican.”

“They also really don’t like how Trump is handling prices. If undecided voters are just tuning in, and if they rank prices as a top priority, then how they feel about the incumbent’s performance on prices is likely to be decisive. Overall, 69% of undecided voters disapprove of the job Trump is doing in general, and just 14% approve. “

“If Democrats take over Congress, Republican voters are worried they’ll move too far to the left and enact socialist policies. If Republicans keep control, Democrats fret about President Donald Trump having unchecked power,” CNBC reports.

“Those are the findings from a new CNBC poll that shows what each side of the political divide fears about the other as the midterm election looms. Republicans in the survey also say they worry about weakened border security and higher taxes under a Democratic Congress. Democrats say they’re concerned about continued Immigration and Customs Enforcement deportations and ongoing military efforts in Iran under a Republican one.”

Sean Trende: “While I can come up with stories about why polls this year might be underestimating Republicans on balance, I can also come up with theories about why polls are now underestimating Democrats on balance.”

“One obvious explanation is that pollsters are overly sensitive about misses in 2016, 2020, and 2024 and have overcorrected for them, effectively solving for Republican turnout problems in their polls that will still exist in the wild. Another is that pollsters are simply weighting 2024 turnout patterns too heavily.”

David Hopkins: “Citizens under 30 dependably have the lowest turnout rates of any age range, and they are especially likely to sit out non-presidential elections. In 2022, only 26 percent of eligible citizens aged 18-29 showed up to vote, compared to 64 percent of those over the age of 60. Even a dramatic surge in support among this sector of the electorate can only deliver a limited number of new votes.”

“A less examined but more strategically important age group is those in their 30s and 40s. Many Americans first become engaged in politics during this life stage, and some are still developing firm views and preferences. As a result, they represent a significantly larger slice of the overall electorate—the Times poll estimates that voters between the ages of 30 and 44 will outnumber those between 18 and 29 by a 2-to-1 ratio this November—but can also exhibit significant partisan shifts from one election to the next.”

“The midterm campaign is being fought in areas President Donald Trump carried in the last election, and largely among voters who have supported him in the past but have soured on his presidency,” the Washington Post reports.

A new New York Times/Siena College poll in Pennsylvania’s 8th District finds Paige Cognetti (D) leading Rob Bresnahan (R) in the U.S. House race, 51% to 46%.

The same poll in Pennsylvania’s 7th District finds Bob Brooks (D) leading Ryan Mackenzie (R) in the U.S. House race, 49% to 44%.

The same poll in Pennsylvania’s 10th District finds Scott Perry (R) and Janelle Stelson (D) tied in the U.S. House race, 48% to 48%.

The same poll in Pennsylvania’s 1st District finds Bob Harvie (D) leading Brian Fitzpatrick (R) in the U.S. House race, 48% to 46%.

New York Times: “The four seats in Pennsylvania are seen as critical examples of some of the fights playing out nationwide. The districts include working-class communities in the state’s northeastern corner, growing towns with large Hispanic populations, a swing Philadelphia suburb and some more conservative parts of the center of the state.”

“In the 1990s, politicians fought for the support of soccer moms. In the 2010s, they competed for votes from white working-class voters. Now it is clear: Latinos are the most important swing voters of the 2020s,” the New York Times reports.

“Democrats have made gains with Latinos over the past two years, winning back trust with a crucial group of voters who helped fuel President Trump’s return to the White House in 2024. Latino voters now favor Democrats over Republicans by 30 percentage points, according to the latest New York Times/Siena poll.”