Heading into the 2026 midterm elections, there are some very big warning signs for Republicans in the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll.
The survey of 1,443 adults, conducted from Nov. 10-13 found:
- Democrats holding their largest advantage, 14 points, since 2017 on the question of who respondents would vote for if the midterm elections were held today;
- President Trump's approval rating is just 39%, his lowest since right after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol;
- A combined 6-in-10 blame congressional Republicans or Trump for the government shutdown; and
- Nearly 6-in-10 say Trump's top priority should be lowering prices — and no other issue comes close.
"I don't think rent prices or food prices are at the forefront like they should be," said Nicole Stokes of Dallas, Texas, who participated in NPR's poll and voted for Trump last year. "You know – the American people – it's our pockets that are getting ripped apart to fund things."
From the political parties and Congress to the Supreme Court and the media, other respondents said they had little to no confidence in these critical institutions.
"I feel lost," said poll respondent Wayne Dowdy of Memphis, Tenn., who calls himself a "lapsed Democrat." "The parties don't speak to me anymore."
He said he often feels unseen by the Democratic Party, but, given the alternative, he plans to keep supporting Democratic candidates — for now.
The disillusionment extends to how people see those in the opposite political party. Big majorities of Democrats and Republicans said the other party is "dishonest" and "closed-minded" about politics.
All of it makes for a volatile political stew heading into the holidays, but with Republicans in charge of all the levers of power in Washington, Democrats have the clear advantage a year out from next year's midterm elections.
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Democrats in the driver's seat for control of Congress
Coming off huge wins up and down the ballot across the country in this year's off-year elections, Democrats lead Republicans, 55%-41%, when people were asked who they would vote for in their district if the election for Congress were held today.
It's the largest Democratic advantage on this question, known as the congressional ballot, in the Marist poll since November 2017. The parallel is striking, considering that was at the same point in Trump's first term as this poll now. Democrats wound up winning 40 House seats in 2018.
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What's more, independents chose Democrats by a 33-point margin on this question. It's all quite the reversal of fortune from a year ago when, just before the 2024 elections when President Trump won back the White House, the parties were tied on the congressional ballot.
Historically, Democrats have needed a sizable advantage on the congressional ballot to signal that they would do well in upcoming midterms.
Consider:
- In the fall of 2022, with Democratic President Biden in the White House, Democrats' lead ranged from 0 to 4 points. They lost 9 House seats;
- In 2018, during Trump's first term, Democrats' lead ranged between 6 and 12. They won 40 seats;
- In 2014, when Democrat Barack Obama was president, Republicans had a 5-point advantage. The GOP gained 13 seats.
All that said, with redistricting, the number of competitive seats has shrunk significantly, so major gains are less likely than they were in previous years. Trump has also encouraged conservatives in red states to try and create more Republican districts in rare mid-decade redistricting.
Democrats have responded in kind, so the landscape for control of the House for next year remains uncertain at this point.
The Trump drag on the GOP
A big reason for Democrats' advantage is that Trump is unpopular. Not only is he at 39% approval, the lowest of this second term in the Marist poll, but he gets just a 24% rating with independents as well.
Overall, almost half of those surveyed – 48% – said they strongly disapprove of the job the president is doing. That's also the highest of this term and the highest since just after Jan. 6, 2021.
The president has seen low ratings for his handling of various policy areas, including the economy and foreign policy, and people think he's gone too far on immigration.
Trump has said on more than one occasion in this second term that while campaign advisers told him prices were the most important issue, he always felt it was really immigration. But respondents in the NPR survey are sending a clear message: they think the cost of living should be Trump's top priority.
Almost 6-in-10 – 57% – said lowering prices should be his top priority. Immigration is a distant second at 16%. Even a plurality of Republicans (40%) said lowering prices should be the priority compared to immigration (34%).
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Despite Trump's slide in approval ratings, he's holding up well with his base – 9-in-10 Republicans continue to say they approve of the job he's doing.
Stokes, the Trump voter from Dallas, said a year into his presidency, said she's pleased by his attempts to tackle illegal border crossings and restrict U.S. foreign aid, but she is concerned that the president hasn't made the economy a focus.
But her support of Trump doesn't translate to Republicans on Capitol Hill. Instead, she said, she has little confidence in the elected officials representing either political party.
"They're not in tune with anyone on the ground," Stokes said. "I don't really see anyone in [the House] or in the Senate that's really for the American people right now."
It's not just Trump. Democrats and others get low marks
Trump's approval is low and so is confidence in the office he holds – 61% said they have little to no confidence in the institution of the presidency.
But the scores were even poorer for other key institutions. Worst among them was Congress – 80% said they had little to no confidence in it, followed by the media (75%), the Democratic Party (71%), the Republican Party (65%) and the Supreme Court (62%).
This is yet another poll that shows Democrats have a problem with their base. While 80% of Republicans have "quite a lot" or a "great deal" of confidence in the GOP, just 57% of Democrats said the same of their party.
Despite long supporting liberal candidates, Dowdy, the Democrat from Memphis, argues the party has become disconnected from everyday voters.
"They don't interact with working people," he said, "regardless of whether they work in an office or on a job site or building homes or working in a factory. They don't know how people like that live... They have no connection to the real people. And there's no attempt to try and reach that."
And yet, Democrats have a wide advantage on the congressional ballot, which, coupled with the electoral gains earlier this month, indicate that left-leaning voters may rally to Democrats' side when faced with having to choose between them and Republicans.
Democrats and Republicans see each other as "dishonest" and "closed-minded"
It's no wonder political acrimony is as high as it is in the country; people have very little respect for where the other side is coming from.
The survey found that more than 8-in-10 Republicans and Democrats described people in the other political party as "closed-minded"; more than 7-in-10 Republicans and roughly two-thirds of Democrats also see the other as "dishonest" when talking about politics.
Independents have better views of Democrats than Republicans. They said Republicans were more dishonest and closed-minded than Democrats with a majority of independents (54%) saying Republicans were "mostly dishonest" compared to more than 6-in-10 saying Democrats were "mostly honest" when it came to politics.
Nearly 7-in-10 independents also described Republicans as mostly closed-minded, while a majority (53%) said Democrats were mostly open-minded.
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