Democrats Pull Ahead In 2026 Race

Democrats currently have a massive advantage in Congress for 2026. According to the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll, this is their largest advantage since 2017 in terms of whom people would vote for on the congressional ballot.

When you actually go to the polling place to cast your vote, you are not voting on a generic member of Congress, you are voting on your congressperson. Thus, it’s possible that widespread dissatisfaction with the Republican Party doesn’t necessarily translate into your individual congressperson losing his or her seat.

Democrats, however, currently hold a 14-point advantage in this poll — a very, very large advantage. If that were to stick in the generic congressional ballot, then we’re looking at a Democratic wave in 2026.

President Trump’s approval rating is just 39%, which is his lowest since right after January 6.

A combined 6 in 10 people blamed congressional Republicans or Trump for the government shutdown, which is likely the result of the legacy media spinning a completely Democrat-caused government shutdown into a story about President Trump and Republicans.

Nearly 6 in 10 say that Trump’s top priority should be lowering prices. No other issue comes close.

So, those are very bad numbers for the Republicans right now. What does that mean for the 2026 election? 

In fall 2022, Democrats had a lead in the generic congressional ballot. They ended up losing nine House seats to the Republicans. In 2018, during Trump’s first term, the Democrats’ lead was somewhere between 6 and 12 points, and they also ended up winning 40 seats. In 2014, when Obama was president, Republicans had a five-point advantage, and the GOP gained 13 seats. So, the number of actual vulnerable districts has shrunk dramatically.

So, even if Democrats have a gigantic advantage in the generic congressional balloting, the way the districts are stacked up, there are a lot more solid dem districts and a lot more solid Republican districts and fewer swing districts overall. 

Democrats need three seats to take control of the House. So, what is the most likely outcome?

The upper end of disaster for Republicans would be 20 to 25 seats, which would put Democrats pretty solidly in control of the House. Now, it would take a massive Democratic wave for them to take over the Senate. The two most vulnerable seats are in Maine and in North Carolina.

Senator Susan Collins — who is frequently a target for many dyspeptic Republicans who don’t understand that if you want a Republican to hold the seat in Maine, that Republican is not going to look like Tom Cotton or Rick Scott — is a battler and a survivor up in Maine. She is the only Republican incumbent running in a state won by Kamala Harris in 2024. Collins is facing a radical democratic socialist, Graham Platner, who is a disaster area for a wide variety of reasons.

In North Carolina, the seat is open because Thom Tillis, a frequent target of the president, has decided that he is not going to run for reelection. Perhaps that seat swivels blue.

If the Democrats take both those seats, they still won’t have the upper hand because Republicans hold 53 seats, which means that in order for Democrats to take control of the Senate, they would need to take two more. It’s not totally out of the range of possibility for Democrats to win the Senate, but it would take a lot.

But losing the House would be bad enough; if the GOP loses the House, that’s the end of major legislation from the Trump administration. It means endless investigations. It means that the House becomes a baton to wield against everything the Trump administration is trying to do on the executive level.

There’s a brand new Reuters/Ipsos poll that shows similar numbers, with Trump at 38%, which, again, is the lowest rating he has had since he returned to power in January.

Why is President Trump lagging in the polls now? Why is he at 39%-40%?

The reason is not what people think it is. It’s not his foreign policy or that Trump’s foreign policy is tearing apart the Republican Party. In fact, he only part of his policy right now that is wildly popular, at least by Trumpian standards, is his foreign policy. In fact, his approval ratings on foreign policy are better than any prior president of the modern era at this point in his term, which is extraordinary.

For the amount of crap that he is currently taking in the very online spaces, you guys should get out and touch grass. It turns out many Americans like the stuff that President Trump has been doing on foreign policy,

It isn’t immigration either. The president’s net approval ratings on immigration have gone down, but that’s largely because he has solved the immigration crisis in the United States. He solved the problem of the southern border. If Americans were thinking about the southern border in comparison to Biden, Trump’s approval ratings would be 80%.

The reason Trump’s approval ratings are low are two: The economy and the Epstein files.

He has slid 24 points since February of 2025 on the economy and 59% of Americans do not approve of his handling of the Epstein files.

The reason president Trump’s approval ratings have dropped on the Epstein files is because there are actors trying to use the Epstein files as a club against the president in order to seize control of the MAGA movement. That’s what’s happening.

Trump, however, has not done anything radically different from Joe Biden when it comes to Epstein. In fact, he has been significantly more transparent than Joe Biden ever was.

It’s notable that many of the big advocates on the Epstein matters are either directly implicated by the Epstein files, like Steve Bannon, or are people who had no qualms about Epstein and were not talking about Epstein a year and a half ago. There were no major motions from Rep. Thomas Massie, for example, to the Biden administration asking for the release of the Epstein files.

Right now, DailyWire+ annual memberships are fifty percent off during our Black Friday sale. Join now at dailywire.com/blackfriday.

Now there are a bunch of angry critics of the president’s foreign policy who are attempting to use the Epstein files as a way to undermine him.

That doesn’t mean people don’t have open questions; of course, that’s true. But the people who have elevated this to the top of the issue stack are people who, shall we say, do not like the president’s foreign policy decisions.

Why do you think Abby Phillip is now massaging Marjorie Taylor Greene? You can tell who’s getting the strange new respect these days when you’re on the same side as Abby Phillip.

There are also popular podcasters and voices who continue to malign the president without saying his name because they’re cowards who continue to say that the administration is covering up the Epstein files, but don’t say Trump’s name because they don’t want to offend Trump. They’re afraid that Trump will reach over like King Kong and crush them.

Instead, they simply imply and imply and imply, without just saying the thing they want to say, out of pure, unbridled cowardice.

It’s pretty impressive.

But it’s not right.