** 5/19/26 - Ed Kilgore - Polls Show Democrats Have a Great Shot at Flipping the House + 5/26/26 - G Elliot Morris - Trump’s approval rating hits another low on prices as Democrats hit +8 on generic ballot
Buzz Sawyer
Polls Show Democrats Have a Great Shot at Flipping the House
By Ed Kilgore, political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015As Donald Trump focuses on crushing dissension in the Republican Party, his standing among the American people generally continues to fester. His job-approval ratings have dropped below 40 percent in the RealClearPolitics averages and reached 38.4 percent in the Silver Bulletin averages. The president’s net job approval is now deeply underwater: minus-17 percent at RCP and minus-20.1 percent at Silver Bulletin. But perhaps more important, with the midterm elections less than six months away, Democrats are beginning to open up a significant lead in the generic congressional polling that measures voting intentions in U.S. House elections.
Looking at Democrats’ polling over the second Trump term, they’ve hit new highs for in the generic ballot margin at both RCP (7.2 percent advantage) and Silver Bulletin (6.6 percent advantage). By way of context, Republicans won the 2024 national House popular vote by 2.6 percent and the 2022 national House popular vote by 2.7 percent. In both elections, that translated to a very small margin of control in the House (five seats in 2024 and seven in 2022). In the first-term Trump midterms in 2018, Democrats won the national House popular vote by 8.6 percent, winning control of the House by a margin of 35 seats.
Most crucially, Democrats’ polling lead in House races now looks likely to outweigh the advantages Republicans achieved via gerrymandering over the last year. G. Elliott Morris recently estimated that due to GOP redistricting efforts, Democrats might need to win the national House popular vote by as much as 4 percent to flip control of the chamber. They’re running ahead of that benchmark at present. And as good as the averages look for the Democratic Party right now, the party is doing even better in a couple of recent high-quality national polls. A May 15 New York Times–Siena survey showed Democrats leading Republicans in the generic congressional ballot among registered voters by 11 points (50 percent to 39 percent). Earlier in the month, AtlasIntel gave Democrats a truly astonishing 15 percent margin (55 percent to 40 percent).
Since Trump appears to believe his party can win simply by mobilizing its base, it’s worth noting that virtually every measurement shows Democrats exhibiting more enthusiasm to vote than Republicans. As of May 11, Economist-YouGov found 68 percent of Democrats as compared to 61 percent of Republicans are “very motivated to vote.” A May 3 ABC-Washington Post poll showed that 73 percent of Democrats, but only 52 percent of Republicans, considered the 2026 elections more important than past midterms.
Underlying the partisan trends is continuous public angst over living costs and the war in Iran. Silver Bulletin averages of polls on living costs and inflation show Trump with a horrendous net approval rating of minus-41.8 percent on those issues. Illustrative numbers from leading recent polls showing Trump’s job-approval ratings on living costs or inflation include 28 percent approval and 69 percent disapproval (with 56 percent strongly disapproving) from Times-Siena; 27 percent approval and 73 percent disapproval from CBS-YouGov; and 25 percent approval and 69 percent disapproval (with 52 percent disapproving strongly) from Reuters-Ipsos. CBS/YouGov also shows 65 percent of Americans saying Trump’s policies on the U.S. economy are “making it worse.”
Trump’s Iran War is nearly as unpopular as his handling of living costs. The Silver Bulletin polling averages show 36 percent of Americans supporting the war and 58.9 percent opposing it. Current net support of minus-22.9 percent is much worse than the minus-8.2 percent found early in the war on March 3. RCP averages similarly show 38.7 percent of Americans support the war and 56 percent oppose it. The just-released Times-Siena poll illustrates the intensity of opposition, with 56 percent of registered voters strongly disapproving of the war. The most recent Economist-YouGov survey shows considerable public pessimism about Trump’s ability to bring the war to a close, with 86 percent of Americans indicating they believe it will last at least another month, including 34 percent who think it will last more than another year.
Polls also continue to show Trump’s support becoming increasingly limited to his hard-core MAGA base. Among self-identified independents, Times-Siena shows Trump’s overall job assessment at 26 percent approval and 69 percent disapproval (including 54 percent strongly disapproving); Economist-YouGov finds an extremely similar 24 percent approval and 65 percent disapproval (including 54 percent strongly disapproving); and Reuters-Ipsos shows 26 percent approval and 71 percent disapproving (including 50 percent strongly disapproving). In a particularly important metric, Times-Siena shows disapproval of Trump’s job performance creeping up to 16 percent among those who voted for him in 2024. The key swing voters who won the last presidential election for Trump are clearly beginning to sour on him this year.