House battleground very different in 2026 vs 2018 '18 Rs defend 65 seats @ Trump+10/bluer Ds defend 30 @ Clinton+10/redder '26 Rs defend 30 seats @ Trump+10/bluer Ds defend 62 @ Harris+10/redder BUT '18 Ds need 24 (37% of R defensive seats) '26 Ds need 3 (10% of R defensive seats)

In-party disaffection for Democrats is coming from the left, where voters are still likely to vote for Democrats in elections. But among Republicans, it’s moderates and conservatives who rate the GOP image worse. That’s a bigger problem, because those voters are likelier to cross over and vote Dem.

This is a great question to ask. As someone left of center, if you think the answer is the second one, think hard about what needs to change or accept you believe there is basically no chance of Democrats controlling the Senate and passing real laws or nominating judges for the next decade or so.

This new Navigator tracking survey has Democrats taking the lead over Trump in H2H on taxes, inflation, and the economy for the first time in I’m not sure how long (a while). Trump led on all 3 in late February.

Enjoyed this piece from @robflaherty.bsky.social Recently we have been studying a similar concept to the “opt in” and “opt out” voters in our polling, and I think it’s incredibly useful for understanding how current trends in political behavior and media habits are related…

A striking set of results from Navigator Research. A lot of the time simple language tweaks make little difference, but here, voters are much more comfortable agreeing with a position once it criticizes the status quo.

To hold the power to pass major legislation over next decade, Democrats need to run the sort of candidates and be the sort of party that can win/defend Senate seats in every swing state and win seats in Trump+10/+15 states. It’s about necessity as much as opportunity.

To hold the power to pass major legislation over next decade, Democrats need to run the sort of candidates and be the sort of party that can win/defend Senate seats in every swing state and win seats in Trump+10/+15 states. It’s about necessity as much as opportunity.

Really seems British voters like to pretend to pollsters they live in a democracy with a proportional representation system until there’s an election and then, eventually, they voter for a party that can win in their constituency. Epistemologically difficult to read the mood.

Harris was perceived as more liberal than Biden, Clinton, or Obama had been when they ran. And while people saw Trump as more conservative than they had previously, they were still closer ideologically to him (1.62 points away) than Harris (2.06). cooperativeelectionstudy.shinyapps.io/Ideology/

Striking parallel between Trump and Liz Truss in terms of the power of economics/markets to turn even one’s own partisans against you. Trump isn’t losing any support over his performative cruelty towards immigrants, but is rapidly losing Republicans over economic policy, stock market, inflation etc

At the regional/county level, the 2023->2025 swing is very similar to the 2020->2024 swing. (Notice Crawford and Harris both did relatively well in suburban WOW)

So far there is not a clear relationship between special election turnout and Democratic over performance. If anything higher salience/turnout specials like FL-01/06 have been better for Democrats than the average (average swing is +11%D so far in 2025)

Incredible stat: the electorate in FL-01 and FL-06 skewed Republican by +28 and +21 in registration, yet the GOP only won by 14 points. This isn’t just Dem turnout: this is persuasion. Trump is losing ground with GOP voters, and Independents broke hard for Democrats.

While voter ID passed in Wisconsin the “yes” vote (62.7%) was narrowly under the lowest support ever recorded by Wisconsin’s premier pollster, suggesting some mix of: -very lib electorate -real support lower than polls -thermostatic backlash -voters do love 2 vote “no”

The Musk triple threat: - universal name ID/salience - infuriates liberal base, but not equally adored by conservative base - backlash with marginal Republican voters

Trump coalition relied on new support from apolitical/“disengaged” voters - if he still boasted outsize support from that ilk, a poll like this would be a place to look. Evidence so far points to the opposite: tariffs/Elon agenda excites the online fanboys but worries normies.

New Gallup issue approval data - economy now one of Trump’s worst issues, at -18, 59% disapprove Unique/noisy data bc it’s all adults (not just voters) and RDD (all phone, traditional), but these points in some ways make the very bad econ ratings more interesting

This was a great slogan

Search interest in “Tesla boycott” and “Tesla takedown

Rising share of Democratic rank and file want congressional Ds to oppose Trump as much as possible, not find common ground Jan 46% preferred opposition Feb 65% Now 70% And Democrats who feel this way overwhelmingly say party could be doing more on this front More: www.cbsnews.com/news/opinion...

For the party to be truly relevant and have a shot at passing an agenda, it also needs to become the sort of party that can compete in places like Ohio and Texas. It’s always been true but was more complicated when there was more variance in politics (the odd survivor in MT or WV, etc)

Finally getting toward a decent visualization of why “reach” Senate races are so important. With Democrats having seen so much success in purple America, there is no where else to go.

All I’m saying is that Democrats better have a competent candidate running in every single race, from state leg to US senate, in 2026

Democrats no longer have the luxury of losing Texas, writes Luke Warford www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/202...

Perceptions of Trump's economic actions so far are correlated with income but in the opposite direction of what you saw with Trump support in 2024 (e.g. his actions are less popular the lower you go in income scale)

I count 2 seats flipped by the president's party in midterm, in a state that president lost in the most recent presidential election, over past 40 years (both were in 1998: popular Gov. Evan Bayh won IN and some guy named John Edwards won NC in 1998...)

Always a good question.

Trump approval on inflation/prices fell to a new low in YouGov data, 38% approve to 52% disapprove

Interesting finding - most of the gap in Musk/Trump popularity is down to differences among Trump voters. Musk is most popular among engaged, educated Trump voters. But there is some possible backlash (or dislike for billionnaire Musk in the Oval, etc) among the non-college, apolitical segment.

Incredible chart

Thermostatic opinion watch: 2025 survey in California finds a sharp reversal in Biden-era trend toward anti-immigration attitudes

Tulsi Gabbard ahead of Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Rick Scott, Kristi Noem, Greg Abbot in CPAC straw poll

The youth gender divide is real and important, but it can mask the fact that the populist right is gaining ground among young women as well as young men in many countries (this was also true in the US). AfD tripled their vote share among 18-24 year old men, but the same was true of young women.

NEW: updated long-run gap in voting between young men and women in Germany: Gender divide continues to widen, but contrary to what is often assumed, young men continue to vote roughly in line with the overall population, while young women have swung sharply left. www.ft.com/content/29fd...

Seems like German polls were pretty good.

A problem with becoming a party of edge lords is you lose touch with the segment of the electorate on the other end of the socio-political spectrum (people who attend town halls)

Campaign button from Janet Mills 2018 run for Maine governor: #mepolitics

How many federal workers would DOGE need to fire to make up for Musk not paying his fair share of taxes? Answer: 677,000. That's 44% of the entire non-DoD federal workforce. Again, this power grab is not about the budget. It’s about politics.

Gallup just registered Trump's worst economic approval rating on record, at -12 (42% approve/54% disapprove). Throughout Trump's first term it was a relative strength for him, and previously his lowest economic rating with Gallup was -8 in June 2017.

Snapshot of the parties Gallup finds that having lost election Ds more likely to say party should become “more moderate” (+11 in 2025 compared to 2021) Having lost an election Rs were more likely to say party should become “more conservative” (+12 in 2021 compared to 2025)

Gallup found some polling on buying Greenland from 1947.

Approval for Trump 2.0 is enjoying a higher honeymoon than in 2016 but he is still historically unpopular. He has by a good margin the worst honeymoon approval of any president on record, just not counting Trump 1.0.

Interesting finding - going back 25 years the peak of satisfaction with "your personal life at home" was recorded in January 2020, two months before Covid. The number then plummeted, never recovered, and just hit a new low.

YouGov poll has Luigi Mangione at +9 (39 fav/30 fav) among 18-29 year olds -- and UnitedHealthcare at +16 (47 fav/31 unfav) d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/ec...

Navigator Survey of 2024 voters finds Trump had net positive (retrospective) approval among younger Black men and Hispanic men. Trump favorability was lower than approval, and Harris was above water herself. Economy and inflation were totally dominant as top issues.

In Illinois (2024), support for a tax on millionnaires to reduce property taxes for all was most popular in the wealthiest counties

With some notable exceptions, on *average* the 2018-2024 demographic trends in AZ/MI/NV/PA/WI Senate elections very similar to the 2020-2024 national presidential trends, with losses in relative support concentrated among young and non-white voters.

Look, I get it, whoever won is brilliant, whoever lost is an idiot. But pinning the election on fucking OTT targeting is insane if you actually know how any of this works. /🤮

A telling chart about Trump's organic virality (double edged for him). Ranking of peak search interest... 1. "Trump speech" - RNC 2. "Harris speech" - DNC 3. "Trump garbage truck" 4. "Trump McDonalds" 5. "Trump Puerto Rico" 6. "Harris speech" - Ellipse