Polling Data Spells Potential Disaster for Republicans in the Midterms

New data signals trouble for Republicans in this year’s midterm elections, given President Donald Trump’s low approval rating currently in many of their districts as he wages an unpopular war on Iran.

Traditionally, midterm elections result in losses for the political party of the president who is currently in office. The number of seats lost often depends on how popular the president is — and with Trump’s approval hitting new lows in his second term, it’s not looking good for Republicans.

The new survey, conducted by pollster G. Elliot Morris and published on his website, Strength in Numbers, utilizes a multilevel regression and post-stratification model, which he says combines “survey data with official Census demographics and election results to produce estimates of Trump’s approval among registered voters at the hyperlocal level.”

According to Morris, there are 135 seats in Congress at the moment — 104 in the House and 31 Senate seats — that are held by Republicans in districts where Trump’s approval rating is below 50 percent.

Many of those seats could be in deep trouble closer to the midterms. Indeed, 48 of those seats are in jurisdictions where Trump’s approval rating is 40 percent or lower, and of those seats, 21 are in districts where Trump’s approval rating is 35 percent or lower.

To put this in perspective, the current GOP House majority sits at 217 Republicans to 214 Democrats — meaning, a shift of just two seats could result in Democrats controlling that chamber of Congress. A shift of four seats in the Senate would shift control there.

Per Morris’s reporting, the low polling numbers for Republicans are due in large part to the joint U.S.-Israeli war on Iran that the Trump administration has pushed over the past month.

“The question Republican politicians should be asking themselves in light of these data is: Do you want to win re-election, or do you want to keep backing your party leader who is threatening to ‘end civilization’ in an unpopular, unsuccessful, unnecessary overseas war?” Morris wrote in his recent post, referring to Trump’s Truth Social post on Monday. “Because these data suggest you can’t do both.”

Although the president’s decision to start an unlawful war with Iran is deeply unpopular, Trump is facing disapproval ratings on myriad subjects, not just that one. Recent polling from an Economist/YouGov poll published this week shows that 56 percent of Americans disapprove of his performance on jobs and the economy, while 64 percent disapprove of how he has handled inflation and the price of consumer goods. Meanwhile, recent polling from a Quinnipiac University poll shows that 59 percent of Americans disapprove of Trump’s handling of foreign policy overall as well.

Trump’s disapproval rating on these and other issues could lead to gains for Democrats come November. Multiple recent polls suggest that, as of April 7, Democrats lead Republicans by 5.8 points nationally when it comes to whom voters prefer to run Congress following this year’s midterm races.

While these numbers could change between now and Election Day 2026, just seven months from now, past polling during midterm election years at this point in the year have generally been a good indication of who will win Congress. In 2022, for example, according to aggregate data from RealClearPolling.com, on April 7 of that year, Republicans were projected to win the midterms by a national rate of 3.4 percent, and eventually won by 2.8 percent. In the 2018 midterms, on April 7, Democrats were predicted to win by 7.5 percent, and ended up winning nationally by 8.4 percent.

Recent electoral wins by Democrats could also signal trouble for Republicans. A state Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, for example — a state which Trump won narrowly by around 1 percent against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris — saw liberal Judge Chris Taylor win overall by more than 20 points against her conservative opponent.

Democrats lost an open seat in a special election to fill former congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s seat in Georgia on April 7. But, whereas Trump won that district by 37 points in 2024, the Republican candidate this week only won it by just 12 points — a 25-point swing for Dems in that race.

While these and multiple other positive bellwether wins by Democrats in the past year and a half have suggested the party may fare well in the midterms, polling data also suggests that voters aren’t too happy with Democrats overall, either.

According to a YouGov tracker poll at the end of March, only 36.1 percent of Americans viewed Democrats in Congress in a positive light, while 57.8 percent viewed them unfavorably. That data suggests that, while Democrats appear to be in a good position to take control of Congress in the fall, the difference between a “blue wave” and a simple majority win could require the party to take a deeper look at what voters actually want from their lawmakers beyond simply not being Trump.