Republicans lose edge on economy, gas prices, immigration, foreign policy
The generic-ballot gap amounts to a 13-point swing from how Trump carried the 2024 popular vote, and it comes as several Republican candidates have begun publicly breaking with the president on issues central to their races. The survey, fielded by live caller, text, and online, found 59% of voters disapprove of Trump’s performance in office, unchanged from May, while the intensity of that disapproval has grown.
Trump raised the midterm stakes earlier in the month when he told Republicans at what NPR described as an “unprecedented midterm convention” in Dallas to “pretend that I’m on the ballot.” The polling suggests many voters have done so: 45% say their choice for Congress is a vote against Trump, while about a third say the president is not much of a factor in their decision. Among those for whom Trump is not a factor, 41% are Republican.
The 12-point Democratic edge on the generic ballot is one of the forces making House districts and Senate races competitive in states Trump carried comfortably in 2024. The poll identifies Ohio (Trump won by 11 points), Alaska (13), Iowa (13), and Texas (14) as Senate battlegrounds where Democrats see a path to a chamber majority. Trump 2024 voters report following the midterms less closely than Harris 2024 voters, care less about which party controls Congress, and are less likely to have been contacted by someone urging them to vote.
Issue-by-issue, the Republican advantage that defined the 2024 campaign has frayed. On immigration — long a Republican strength — voters now say Democrats would do a better job by 41% to 38%. On the economy the gap is 42% to 38% for Democrats, on gas prices 40% to 27%, and on foreign policy 42% to 36%. According to AAA data cited in the report, the statewide average for diesel fuel is more than $6.31 a gallon in Iowa and $6.88 in Michigan, both the highest recorded averages in AAA’s tracking history.
Republican candidates in competitive races have begun publicly diverging from the administration. Florida Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, who represents a district Trump carried by more than 14 points in 2024, released a campaign ad telling the president that “some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.” Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson and former Michigan Rep. Mike Rogers, both Republican Senate nominees, reversed their positions this week to come out in favor of ending the war with Iran and called for suspending gas taxes to address rising prices.
Trump’s own standing has weakened across the period surveyed. His favorability among voters has fallen from 44% in January 2025 to 37% in the latest poll. The 53% strong-disapproval reading is the highest recorded since the question was first asked in 2017. Overall disapproval has held at 59% since May, while the share expressing strong disapproval has risen.
A majority of voters, according to the poll, say it is more important to back candidates with new ideas who will bring about change than candidates with experience and a proven record. That orientation, combined with the anti-Trump intensity visible in the disapproval numbers, frames the closing weeks of the campaign as a referendum the president has asked voters to cast against himself.