President Donald Trump's Republican Party is suffering so immensely in pre-midterm polling, experts are starting to wonder if there is something funky with the polls themselves. If not, then Trump could be in for a shellacking worse than he suffered during his first term's midterm contests, in which Democrats gained 40 seats in the House of Representatives even while losing two in the Senate.
"To be clear, I am concerned about polls being loaded up for Ds (and I note some of those concerns on a couple of newsy polls in my piece today that otherwise moves a lot of races toward Ds)," Sabato's Crystal Ball managing editor Kyle Kondik posted on X on Tuesday. "But we also have to be open to the possibility that this is 2018 on steroids."
Writing for the Sabato's Crystal Ball website, Kondik elaborated on his position.
"We also are pushing Ohio’s open gubernatorial race as well as Gov. Joe Lombardo’s (R-NV) reelection bid from Leans Republican to Toss-up," Kondik wrote. "We have resisted making this pair of moves for months because of the Buckeye State’s generic GOP lean as well as Lombardo’s incumbency, but we can no longer justify looking at the Republicans as favorites in either race given broader trends. Republicans have had big spending edges in both races but they still both appear highly competitive."
Speaking with AlterNet last week about the 2026 midterm elections, Kondik broke down the variables that work against the chances of Trump's Republican Party.
"It's primarily the president's weak approval rating combined with the usual difficulty that the presidential party has in a midterm," Kondik told AlterNet. "I also think there may be even more for voters to react to in 2026 compared to even 2018, because Trump has acted as more of an imperial president and there is more dissatisfaction both with the economy as well as the president's foreign policy choices."
When asked to compare Trump's 2026 predicament with those of president's in analogous positions, Kondik drew some important parallels.
"Generally speaking, a president who is this unpopular should see his party lose a lot of ground in Congress," Kondik told AlterNet. "That said, Joe Biden also had poor approval in 2022, but Republicans didn't do all that well—they flipped the House but not the Senate. However, the Republican lead in the generic ballot was not as large as the Democratic lead is now."
In June, Common Cause’s Policy Director in the Voting and Fair Representation Program Susannah Goodman raised the alarm that Trump might meddle in the midterm elections — which are controlled at the state and local level — in order to rig them for his Republican Party.
“The other thing is that, as you well know, the administration has been trying to compel states to turn their voter rolls over to the federal government and to consolidate all of that in a mega database,” Goodman argued. “A number of states have refused to turn over their unredacted voter rolls with personal identifying information — Social Security numbers, driver's licenses, et cetera. Common Cause and our partners have intervened in, I think, 17 of those cases on behalf of voters.”
She continued, “I don't believe there has been a single case, Dan — correct me if I'm wrong — where, when the state has resisted and claimed they are not going to turn these voter rolls over, the court has dismissed the case or compelled the states to turn them over. The government has not had a compelling reason, and the states have won. So when states fight back, they win. We have been involved in that litigation. That is another huge power grab by the administration. It is also an illegal power grab, and when we have pushed back, we have won.”
