Former White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Karl Rove looks on ahead of a funeral service for former U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, at Washington National Cathedral, in Washington D.C., U.S., November 20, 2025. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Karl Rove is out with a warning for Democrats who may be optimistic about their chances of a big blue wave in November.
According to the longtime Republican political strategist and consultant, things may not be quite as rosy as Democrats think.
As Mediaite reported, Rove pointed to a recent series of Marquette polls of Americans who are certain to vote in November, and found that the margins between Democrats and Republicans are far smaller than many other polls currently suggest.
“Well, look, I’m not certain how much change there really is,” Rove told Fox News anchor Bill Hemmer. “You’ve got into the nitty gritty of these measures, how likely are you to vote, are you certain to vote etc., etc. But if you look at just the top line numbers among all the respondents in the survey, in May it was [46] D, 45 R — the Ds had a one-point advantage. In April it was 48-44, a four-point advantage. So the Democrats in the Marquette survey have dropped two, and the Republicans have added one, which is inside the margin of error.”
“Essentially,” Rove continued, “if you look at this one poll, what it suggests is that there hasn’t been much change, but if there is any change, it’s to the advantage of the Republicans.”
Rove urged viewers to “step back” and not lose sight of the “big picture,” which is that America is a “highly polarized country,” that has just gone through “a mid-decade redistricting that has mildly advantaged the Republicans.”
He says the real question is, “how big a gap do the Democrats need in order to pull off a significant sweep” in the House?
Democrats having an advantage of one point “ain’t much,” Rove said. He suggested that in order for Democrats to “take the House with a significant margin,” they will need at least a five or six point advantage, at a minimum.
According to Rove, many Democratic-held seats are in urban parts of the country, and therefore much more strongly Democratic than many GOP-held seats. Even when GOP-held seats are in “highly conservative rural America,” they are “not as conservative, not as Republican as their urban counterparts are Democrat.”
“So the Democrats right today have an advantage,” Rove declared, “but it’s likely to reduce — produce a relatively small margin in the House elections.”
“And remember, this is a contest between two unfavorables,” he concluded. “The president’s unfavorability is at 40 percent. The Democratic Party’s unfavorability is below 37. So who’s more — who’s less popular and how’s that going to affect the outcome?”