“Voters are deeply dissatisfied with President Donald Trump and his Republican Party heading into the Nov. 3 midterm elections, according to an Associated Press-NORC poll, and Democrats have built a clear advantage on pressing issues such as the cost of living and healthcare over just a few months.”
“But the survey also points to a bigger problem for both parties: Few registered voters think either party is able to solve important problems or help Americans like them.”
“One key to victory in the midterm elections comes down to this question: How can each party win support from people who don’t like them?” the Wall Street Journal reports.
“More voters say they dislike both the Democratic and Republican parties than in other recent elections, the result of economic anxiety and deep dissatisfaction with politicians and government. Some 21% of the voter pool holds an unfavorable view of both parties, a recent Wall Street Journal poll found, significantly above the 13% in the 2022 midterms and about 12% in the past two presidential elections.”
“Taking their lead from president Donald Trump, election deniers have dismissed the GOP’s terrible polling numbers by claiming the polls themselves are fake, a psyop, or a ploy to stop Republicans from turning out to vote in November,” Wired reports.
“They’re fake numbers. I would beat anybody running today by 20 points. Your numbers, that you have, are fake. The pollsters are corrupt. They’re almost as corrupt as the writers.”
— President Trump, quoted by The Guardian, on his poor job approval numbers.
“Americans in both parties back government-imposed price caps and other market interventions to make life more affordable, suggesting new support for populist ideas that were once largely outside the political mainstream,” a Wall Street Journal poll finds.
“The survey suggests that a coalition reaching beyond the nation’s familiar party labels exists for a range of policies at a time when Americans view Republicans and Democrats negatively.”
Dan Pfeiffer: “Midterm polls have tended to be more accurate than polls in presidential years. The polls were historically accurate in 2018 and 2022. I know everyone thinks the polls were wrong in 2022 because the Red Wave never materialized, but the polls were right. The final generic ballot average was Republican +2.5, and the result was Republican +2.7.”
“Midterm polls are more accurate because the electorate includes fewer of the less politically engaged voters who tend not to answer polls. In recent years, those voters have leaned heavily toward Trump. They were undersampled in 2016 and 2020, but because they turn out at lower rates in midterms, the polls tend to be more accurate.”
“Democrats are heading into the final stretch of the 2026 midterms with their largest lead yet in the race for Congress and President Donald Trump’s approval rating at a significant low,” NBC News reports.
“A 9-percentage-point advantage for Democrats when it comes to control of Congress is part of a steady deterioration of the political environment for Republicans. The parties started the road to this November effectively tied in the weeks after President Donald Trump returned to office last year, but independents have gradually begun to prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress. And those voters have soured on Trump and his economic policies in particular.”
A new Strength In Numbers/Verasight poll finds 46% of Americans say their own life is worse off than four years ago, and just 25% say it’s better.
“When we asked respondents the same question about conditions in the country as a whole, 58% say they are worse off: 40% much worse, 18% somewhat. Just 24% say better.”
Dan Pfeiffer: “Unskewing polls is loser shit. If you see a poll result you don’t like and immediately start arguing that the sample has too many Republicans or too few young people, you are focused on the wrong things.”
“Republicans did this in 2012, when all the polls showed Obama winning. Many Democrats did it in 2024, when polls showed Trump beating Biden before the debate.”
Nate Silver: “So if you take the polls at face value, we’re seeing a blue wave that’s… overwhelmingly concentrated in red states. As I wrote, there’s a coherent story behind it. And the evidence for it has been consistent enough that it probably has to count as the ‘base case.'”
“But there’s also some risk here for Democrats. Precisely those groups with whom they’re making the largest gains are those where polls have most overestimated Democrats in recent years.”
“There are also potentially huge, lopsided rewards. If the map is reverting more to something pre-Trump-like, that was a map where Barack Obama won Iowa and Ohio twice. Meanwhile, in the House, Republican gerrymanders in states like Florida and Texas were implicitly premised on the GOP having made permanent gains among Hispanics.”
“Voter concerns about capitalism are rising amid the populist streak gripping American politics,” according to a new national NBC News survey.
“But voters remain wary of socialism and the Democratic Socialists of America, even as some DSA-aligned candidates have notched high-profile primary wins this year.”
“Positive views of capitalism have dropped since 2018. And for the first time in nearly a decade of NBC News polling, registered voters under 30 years old have more positive views of socialism than capitalism.”
Gallup: “Forty-three percent of Americans now have a positive view of socialism, marking the first time this figure has exceeded 39% in Gallup’s trend since 2010.”
“Socialism still trails capitalism and free enterprise in public favorability but now ranks ahead of big business. Small business remains the clear leader among the five economic concepts tested, with 95% viewing it positively.”
Charlie Cook: “Obviously, we don’t yet know what will happen in the Nov. 3 midterms or what will be going on in the minds of Republicans in Congress, but if this election is as bad for Republicans as it might be, one wonders what Trump’s standing in the party will be when it is over.”
The Downballot: “Throughout this year’s just-concluded primary season, there’s been one consistent storyline: Democratic primaries have seen much higher turnout than their Republican counterparts. But does this meaningfully indicate what we might expect in November?”
“It turns out the answer is very much yes.”
“In midterms over the past 80 years, there’s been a surprisingly tight relationship between voting behavior in a given cycle’s primaries and the House popular vote in the general election that follows. Based on that relationship, this year’s primary turnout suggests that Democrats would win the House vote by an enormous 13-point spread.”
“Americans’ opposition to the war in Iran has hardened, according to a new CNN poll, with almost two-thirds saying the U.S. is not winning the conflict and more saying President Donald Trump isn’t doing enough to end it.”
“Americans have never held positive views about the war, and nearly seven months after it began, broad majorities say the conflict has hurt U.S. interests, has not been worth the costs and that the president lacks a clear plan to handle it.”
Seth Masket: “If you’ve been following the midterm election polling over the past week or so, the big story has been the sudden expansion in Democrats’ leads, both in many individual races and in national polling. Just in the past few weeks, Democratic odds of winning the Senate have gone from 50-50 to 64% at the FiftyPlusOne model and 65% in Nate Silver’s model. The median forecast for House elections at FiftyPlusOne has Democrats picking up 39 seats — not too far from my 46-seat forecast I made back in the spring, which I thought was insane when I wrote it.”
“The reasons for an overall Democratic lean this year are well documented. But in terms of the recent boost for Democrats, one can make a case that this is the product of the Republican midterm convention that Donald Trump organized September 9th-10th.”
Dan Pfeiffer: “During midterm elections, the incumbent president is almost always a drag on their party. Voters quickly grow impatient with the lack of progress and tend to want to check the recently elected President.”
“However, the President usually has something to offer his party—a popular accomplishment or at least some progress on solving a problem. In 2010, the Democrats lost more than 60 seats in the House, but Obama was still pretty popular and could at least argue that the worst of the financial crisis was behind us. In 2018, Trump was unpopular, but voters still liked his economy and gave him credit for managing it well.”
“The NBC poll shows that Trump really offers Republicans nothing. His political problems are historic, and voters are rejecting not just him, but every element of his agenda.”
NBC News: 43% of voters want midterm vote to “signal opposition to Trump.”
“Voters are perfectly fine supporting candidates who aren’t white men,” Politico reports.
“But they do show small preferences for candidates who are younger and Christian, according to new results from The Politico Poll. And voters were most likely to penalize transgender candidates in hypothetical matchups, though Democrats were more likely to support them than GOP voters were.”
“The results cast a new light on a simmering, yearslong public conversation within both parties about what it means to be electable and whether putting forward candidates of varying backgrounds is too politically risky in a close election environment.”
Taegan Goddard
Taegan Goddard is the founder of Political Wire -- which for more than two decades has been one of the nation's most influential political news sites.
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