Polling numbers in the run-up to the November midterm elections show a sea of blue.
Favorable poll numbers have Democrats confident they can retake one or both chambers of Congress.
Democrats hold an 8.1 percentage point generic ballot advantage over Republicans in upcoming races, according to an average of recent surveys by RealClearPolling.com as of Oct. 14.
Dems are banking on picking up the open North Carolina Senate seat currently held by retiring Republican Thom Tillis. They also are eyeing Senate wins in GOP-held seats in Ohio, Iowa, Texas, Kansas, Alaska and Maine, again citing favorable polling trends.
Democrats are even more confident about picking up a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
VoteHub, which operates an election and polling data portal, gives Democrats an 84% chance of winning the House and a 59% chance of winning the Senate as of Oct. 13.
VERY IMPORTANT
A lot is at stake for President Donald Trump and his Democratic opponents.
There also is a lot on the line for pollsters and survey research firms that gauge public opinion.
Recent election cycles have seen polls underestimate and undercount Trump supporters. Those have been highlighted by some polling numbers that have gone astray.
That includes a late survey in Iowa during the 2024 presidential race by pollster Ann Selzer for the Des Moines Register that gave former Vice President Kamala Harris a 3-point lead over Trump.
Trump ended up winning Iowa by 14 percentage points on his way to winning battleground states and returning to the White House.
Polling firms have also been challenged by the new communications landscape, with smartphones and text messaging replacing landlines.
“The core problem is that almost nobody answers polls anymore,” said Ryan Williamson, a political science professor at the University of Wyoming.
“Pew’s phone response rates fell from 36% in 1997 to the low single digits. The New York Times/Siena poll reported a 0.4% response rate in 2022. Pew’s own online panel works out to about 3% once recruitment and dropout are counted,” Williamson said. “Democratic pollster Stefan Hankin estimates it now takes 100 to 125 calls to reach one willing respondent, compared with about 25 in the early 2000s, so a poll that used to take three days now takes five or six.”
Williamson said Trump’s runs for the White House saw polls overstate Democrats’ support by 3.1% in 2016, 4.6% in 2020 and 2.7% in 2024.
But he also noted that polls underestimated Democrats in 2025 gubernatorial wins in New Jersey and Virginia.
Early this year, polls overestimated support for left-wing candidates in Democratic primaries for Wisconsin governor and U.S. Senate in Michigan.
SURVEY SAYS
Daniel Schatz, a political scientist and visiting scholar at Columbia University, said younger and less-educated voters, as well as those with lower political efficacy, are problematic for pollsters.
“The central problem is still participation,” he said. “Response rates have fallen dramatically, making it more difficult to ensure that a survey reaches and properly represents voters who are less politically engaged, harder to contact or simply distrustful of institutions.”
Schatz also said this election cycle is very important for pollsters and to gauge if they are getting better at surveying Trump supporters and other groups who have flown under their radar.
“The key question is whether the sample reflects the people who will vote, rather than simply the people most willing to answer a survey,” Schatz said.
Still, Williamson and Schatz see built-in advantages for Democrats.
Opposition parties almost always win seats in midterm U.S. elections. Trump’s approval rating stands at 38.1%, according to RCP’s average of recent polls.
Anti-Trump Democrats are energized, and other voters are frustrated by continued high costs of living, including fuel, insurance, housing and food.
“Affordability is absolutely the top issue,” said Patrick Gonzales, a president of Gonzales Research and Media Services Inc., a Maryland-based polling firm.
Gonzales said high gasoline and diesel prices are a burden. “People are just uneasy.”
Aaron Cutler, a partner with law firm Hogan Lovells Cadwalader LLP and a former senior GOP congressional aide, agrees.
He said high costs, including high gasoline and diesel prices stemming from the U.S./Israel war with Iran, are top of mind in midterm races.
“Voters want the war in Iran to end and prices to come down,” he said.
Trump argues the war is needed to stop Iran from developing and using nuclear weapons. Trump has said gas prices will retreat after the war ends and is promising Americans $5,000 payments if the GOP retains control of Congress.
Cutler said Trump is still popular with his Make America Great Again (MAGA) base, and he can point to stock market gains and a low unemployment rate.
“But he’s not on the ballot. That’s a problem for Republicans,” Cutler said.
‘A REAL PROBLEM’
In the other partisan camp, the midterm races are very much about Democrats’ dislike of Trump.
A recent Pew Research Center poll shows two-thirds (66%) of Democrats view their midterm votes as a vote against Trump. That compares to 48% of Republicans who view their 2026 ballot as a vote for the U.S. president.
The Pew poll shows Trump with a 30% approval rating and Democrats with a 40% approval rating.
Christopher Lee, founder and senior political strategist for Foresight Strategies, sees the potential for major gains for Democrats and major losses for Trump and the GOP.
Lee, who has held senior campaign and advocacy posts with the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Planned Parenthood and labor unions, sees Trump as a drag on the GOP’s midterm odds.
“This is like Nixon in 1974, post Watergate,” said Lee, referring to Republican losses in congressional and gubernatorial races after President Richard Nixon’s resignation.
A number of Democratic candidates are also hoping to tap into opposition to artificial intelligence (AI) data centers in races in Ohio, Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin and other states.
Lee said polling response rates have declined substantially with mobile phones and text messages dominating the contemporary communications landscape.
“That’s a real problem,” Lee said.
He said campaigns and advocates should pay more attention to what they are hearing in the field from voters.
NEW APPROACH
Brian Tomasetti is also taking a new approach to gauging public sentiment.
Tomasetti is founder of the American Public Leadership Foundation (APLF).
The Maryland-based group has created an online platform where voters can voice their concerns and top issues, rather than just being asked who they support or oppose.
Tomasetti said the goal is to amplify voters’ voices and connect them more with elected officials.
“People are just sick and tired of the way things are today,” he said.
That’s helped spur Trump’s populism on the right and progressives and democratic socialists on the left.
Tomasetti said there are equal frustrations with both parties and the inability to address issues such as high healthcare and other costs and a soaring national debt that now tops $40 trillion.
“They both take big money,” Tomasetti said of the special interest cash and influence in the political system.
“We are spending all this money, but we don’t have anything to show for it,” he said. “It’s really more about the American voters versus the ruling class.”
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