U.S. President Donald Trump and his son Donald Trump Jr. arrive at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 3, 2026. REUTERS/Annabelle Gordon
Investor and former journalist Steven Rattner revealed a series of charts on "Morning Joe" Thursday that he thinks forecast a dark omen for the Republican Party on Election Day.
The 2026 election is being compared to what happened to former President George W. Bush in 2006, when Democrats took back the House for the first time in his presidency.
One of the biggest problems in politics over the past decade is that even the best polls have still been off at times. In elections, turnout is the most important number, and until votes are cast, it's only a prediction. Rattner implies his charts capture the electorate's attitudes more closely.
In 2006, Democrats won 31 House seats and six Senate seats. So, Rattner looked at what was happening in the U.S. at that time so he could compare it to Trump's.
In 2006, Bush struggled with gas prices, he explained. The U.S. was embroiled in the war in Afghanistan and another war in Iraq that proved to be based on false intelligence. It was costing the U.S. a fortune, and just a few years after the country balanced its budget, deficits were piling up again.
"He had a war. He had Hurricane Katrina, which also added to gas prices. And so for most of his second term up to this point, gas prices were higher than they have been for Trump," he explained. Adjusted for inflation, up until recently, gas prices were higher under Bush. That's until the past few months.
The chart shows that under Bush, again adjusted for inflation, gas prices were about $3.69 a gallon. For Trump, they're at about $4.35 per gallon.
"So in fact, they're facing a worse gas price situation than they were in 2006," he said.
What helped a little under Bush was that wages largely kept up with higher costs, and that isn't happening with Trump.
"You can see that Trump actually was performing better on wages for the first year and a half of this term. Bush actually was underwater, so to speak. Wages were not keeping up with inflation. Of course, we know that even when wages are going up, the people at the bottom are being left behind and it's much worse for them," he added.
Once gas prices began to moderate under Bush, real wages and purchasing power also went up. Under Trump, prices are going up, gas is higher, but wages have remained the same.
"Voters are looking at no real wage increases under Trump. They were looking at about two and a half, 2.2 percent under Bush," he said. In fact, wages have decreased under Trump before now sitting at a flatline for the past few months.
"And life is becoming completely unaffordable for a growing number of people every day," said host Mika Brzezinski.
Looking at the state of the economy in general is very different. Under Bush, inflation sat at 1.4 percent and under Trump it's almost twice that. Unemployment was only slightly higher (0.2 percent) under Bush. However, Bush was also adding jobs at a significant rate. Trump's have stagnated. His overall economic growth is also lower than under Bush. Interest rates are also higher under Trump than they were under Bush.
Popularity for Bush and Trump is also very different. Bush was reelected with about 50 percent of the vote while Trump hasn't managed to get above that during his second term.
"But by the time you get to election day, they're actually almost exactly identical. Bush at 38 percent, Trump at 37 percent. But Bush came down just at the very end, so very similar in popularity.
Finally, consumer confidence is down significantly under Trump. Rattner called it "some of the worst consumer sentiment ratings that we have ever seen."
Bush was at 92 on election day, while Trump is at just 48.
"So when you ask consumers, how do they feel about life? How do they feel about the economy? How do they feel about their purchasing power? You have an enormous disparity between Bush and Trump," he closed.
