Posted on 12/16/2025 10:43:54 AM PST by dangus
Donald Trump has very high "strongly disapprove" ratings. And it seems like conservative social-media users and on-air personalities seem to be presuming this will translate into a bloodbath on Election Day 2026. But polling data doesn't bear this out.
First, things WILL get better, as far as polls go. Trump's low ratings are a result of disastrously low approval on the economy. This is probably because voters are just now registering the unofficial recession of 2024-25, which saw a worse decline in GDP than any recession between 1983 and 2008. Even though it was unofficial, there has never been such a large climb in official unemployment without an official recession being declared. (On the other hand, a portion of this rise is probably bogus, and there has never been a recession with such a small increase in unemployment since Nixon.) The economy is growing pretty quickly now, though, with the 2nd and 3rd quarter GDPs expected to be around 3.5%. It's not unusual (see 1992 and 2002) for recessions to be over BEFORE they're even identified. And this growth rate is despite the federal budget deficit being more than $100 billion smaller per month over the last three months. A budget deficit frees money up for spending in the short term, but creates stagflation in the long term.
But more importantly, the polls now don't show a Democratic wave. As much as Trump makes the public apprehensive, they certainly don't like Democrats any more. Averaging most polls, you'll find that Republicans are 2-3% behind Democrats. 2018 was a disastrous year for the Republicans, but they were TWELVE percent back at this time before the election; they wound up losing by 9%. (They were SEVENTEEN points back much closer to the election in 2006.) With Democrats more concentrated in their districts, being only 2-3% ahead of the Republicans can still leave Republicans in control of both houses of Congress.
Literally every single cycle shows the Republicans in Congress outperforming their polling from a year out.
The Senate looks to become more conservative. The Republican seats in trouble are leftish moderate Susan Collins' in Maine and Thom Tillis in North Carolina. Tillis is the worst senator in America on MAGA issues like immigration. Meanwhile, Democrats could lose solid partisans in Georgia and Michigan. If things are less stable than they appear to be, I expect Minnesota could be a real sleeper for a Republican pick-up while New Hampshire would also be plausible. On the other hand, Ohio seems potentially vulnerable for the Republicans. But even losing every one of these races still leaves Republicans in control.
I’m ecstatic for the midterms. Especially without mail-in ballots, nationally
The House of Representatives is the biggest problem.
There is no room for error.
The only incumbent President party to gain seats in the House of Representatives in an off year election since World War II was...
W—two months after 911.
Most of these elections were brutal slaughters for the “out” party.
I take a wait and see approach like I do for all elections; you can’t really make any accurate predictions until the final month of the campaign anyway. Look at 2020, this far from the election the economy was booming, and it was assumed Trump was a shoo-in for a second term. Then Covid hit. And for 2024 everybody was gearing up for the big Trump/Biden rematch which of course never happened when Biden went down in flames months before the election.
because the sound of the democrats whistling past the graveyard is disturbing my maga-loving peace!
Has Congress passed, and Trump signed, a law preventing the use of mail-in ballots for Members of Congress? I don't believe so.
Democrats picked up House seats in the 1998 midterms. Voters weren’t in love with the impeachment proceedings against Clinton, so they gave his party a boost (Republicans actually increased their popular vote total and got more votes nationwide than the Democrats, but that didn’t matter).
If voters knew that the Democrats were going to launch phony baloney impeachment proceedings against Trump, they’d give more votes to the Republicans, but I don’t know if voters really are capable of seeing that far into the future.
That is on them. They sit on their butts and do nothing.
1) You mean fourteen months after 9/11.
2) 1962 and 1998 also saw no increase for the out party.
3) 2010, 1986, 1982, 1978, 1970 and 1966 can all be seen as reverting towards the mean after the party that gained experienced bloodbaths in 2008, 1984, 1980, 1968 and 1966. There was no such bloodbath in 2024. And I don’t believe it’s a coincidence that years without gains for the opposition party were years that followed very tight elections with newly elected presidents having no coat-tails (1960, 1998, 2002). This would mean Trump 2024 fits this pattern. (OTOH, 2018 did have bad mid-terms without coat-tails in 2016, and there’s a lot of ambiguity in 2014 and 1998 over whether they represent returning to the normal after a bloodbath. I’d argue that there was no bloodbath in the 2012 or 1996, but they represent deeply unpopular incumbents getting re-elected and that such a re-election represents a wave election for their party.)
The GOP will lose the house in 2026 without Trump arresting major players for fraud and illegal immigration.
Glum because of Trump sounding more and more like he’s losing his mind. More glum because the Republicans are just not doing enough to push the MAGA agenda.
Exactly.
Get these people out of the way and focus on winning. Do Republicans really want losers to be their leaders?
It is better that they be glum, and therefore more motivated to win.
Glum people are demotivated.
Because we believe that our elected reps are purposely handing the midterms to the dems.
The big thing will be the Semiquincentennial next year. If done well, Trump can turn it into a massive anti-Democrat and leftist event.
the Senate is the vital cog in the wheel with their approval of judges.
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