About a year and a half ago, President Trump ended his comeback campaign by telling a Michigan audience he would make America affordable again.
Voters listened. Trump swept the swing states, made inroads into Democratic strongholds, and by the time the counting was done, had posted a stronger performance in every state than he had four years prior.
The economy defined that election, as it does every election. Now, voters are saying something different: a majority disapprove of Trump’s handling of the economy, and their discontent goes deeper than tariffs and gas prices. Most Americans feel like the system is stacked against them.
FOX NEWS POLL: MOST RATE THE ECONOMY NEGATIVELY, INCLUDING HALF OF REPUBLICANS
Support for Trump on the economy has declined. His net approval has dropped 13 points to -37 between March last year and June, according to Fox News surveys; it’s down 24 points to -32 over a similar period in Washington Post/Ipsos polls, with the latest released just last week.
The president’s signature policies play a role in voter frustration, though to a lesser extent than headlines suggest. The cost of living is the most important factor in 46% of voters’ minds, and goods impacted by tariffs and the Iran war, including food (18%) and gas (15%), are in their top five cost concerns. But it’s healthcare (28%) and housing (19%) that top the list, according to a Reuters/Ipsos survey conducted in June.
That may explain why so many Americans are unhappy not just with the state of the economy, but the foundations underpinning it. Large majorities of Americans say the country’s political and economic systems are stacked against them, including 72% of middle-class and 86% of working-class adults. Those figures are each up by more than 30 points from a decade ago.
FOX NEWS POLL: ECONOMIC GLOOM, TRUMP RATINGS SIGNAL TOUGH GOP MIDTERM PATH
As the party out of office, Democrats are well-positioned to take advantage of voters’ economic pain. The question is whether voters think the party is offering a remedy.
The party has an edge by some measures:
Voters prefer Democrats to Republicans by around four points on the generic ballot.
The Democrats have regained a narrow advantage in party affiliation, 47%-43%.
The party has opened up leads in statewide races, including Georgia and North Carolina.
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These are not large gaps, suggesting that while voters don’t like the status quo, they’re not convinced that Democrats will solve their problems. It’s also too early to tell which version of the party’s message will resonate with voters. Add the GOP’s redistricting wins and favorable Senate map, and you get a midterm electorate that feels blue, but won’t necessarily vote blue.
The Senate is a coin flip.
Assuming Democrats and Republicans win every seat leaning their way, they will each take home 48 seats, with four toss-up seats to determine the majority. Those are Alaska, Iowa, Maine and Ohio.
(“Lean D” and “Lean R” seats are still highly competitive, as revealed in this Fox News Power Rankings explainer.)
The Democrats have a mountain to climb. Not only do they need to win three of the four toss-up races to reach 51 seats, they also need to hold on in Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire, and flip North Carolina, which lean Democratic but are highly competitive.
Six of those eight states voted for Trump in 2024, and half of them by double digits, for an overall average of 7.8 points.
Recent history shows us that even when most states must go in one direction for a challenger to win, it doesn’t take a wave election for that to happen. Trump won the national vote by 1.5 points in his comeback victory, but he swept all seven of the swing states.
The same could happen in November: lean Democratic victories in key races, but a sweep in the states needed to flip the Senate majority. On a good night for Republicans, the same in reverse: many close wins and, based on this forecast, only a loss of one seat in the Senate.
Michigan
Michigan is the most compelling race on the map. If progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed wins the upcoming Democratic primary, the question will be whether a left-wing economic populist message, led by Medicare for All, appeals to swing state voters. If moderate Rep. Haley Stevens gets the primary win, then her challenge will be to unite her party and prove that a center-left, anti-Trump message is what voters want.
In this political environment, Michigan is a Lean D state. It hasn’t voted for a Republican for Senate in 30 years. The margin of victory for Democrats has narrowed, but they held this seat just two years ago with an electorate that leaned Republican.
Presumptive GOP nominee and former Rep. Mike Rogers is about as ideal a candidate as his party could hope for, but his narrow loss in 2024 is a reminder that even with favorable conditions, the party still fell short.
There isn’t yet any polling evidence that El-Sayed would be a weak candidate in a general election, nor that Stevens would jeopardize what would normally be a Democratic pickup. This race starts at Lean D.
Iowa
Iowa has seemed firmly Republican since 2016, when white working-class voters turned out in droves for Trump.
They have remained loyal to the president, but overall, Iowa’s voters don’t look that different than Alaska or Ohio, two other states that both parties believe are ultra-competitive this year.
In the latest Fox News Poll, Democratic Senate candidate and State Rep. Josh Turek had a four-point edge at 50% to Republican Rep. Ashley Hinson at 46%. Turek’s counterpart for governor opened up a nine-point lead in the same poll. Other surveys show a tighter race, but all of these numbers spell out a toss-up election, which is where the state sits in this forecast.
Texas
The Lone Star State is Likely R on the fundamentals: the GOP has won every Senate race here since 1990, and though former Democratic Rep. Beto O’Rourke came close in 2018 (he lost by 2.6 points), the state clearly favors the Republican brand.
Democrats like their challenger, James Talarico, believe that his opponent, Attorney General Ken Paxton, is weak because of several scandals, and hope that Talarico’s self-described “cringy” comments won’t land as badly as O’Rourke’s did eight years prior.
The Democratic state representative has also enjoyed some tight polling in recent weeks, though he and Paxton are both several points short of a majority. This race starts at Lean R.
Democrats lead in the House, but victory is not guaranteed
The president’s party has lost an average of 25 U.S. House seats in Trump-era midterm elections. Given that Democrats only have an edge on the generic ballot and in party affiliation, so far, they look like they’re on track for an “average” night.
Republican redistricting wins change that calculation. The GOP is likely to bank about a dozen seats from new district boundaries drawn by Republican-controlled state legislatures, up to nine of those in Florida and Texas alone.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom scored his party an extra three to five seats after voters approved his gerrymandering referendum, but overall, the GOP won this battle in what now looks like a redistricting “forever war.”
Together, this adds up to a small Democratic lead in the House. They start with 211 races in their categories, or seven short of the 218 they need for a majority. If they win more than a handful of toss-up races, they will have enough to flip the chamber.
There is enough room for the Republicans to maintain control on a good night for the party. Since toss-up races tend to be won and lost together, they could even improve on the slim majority they currently enjoy.
More on that tomorrow, plus a seat-by-seat breakdown of the House forecast, and a close look at some of the districts that will define the race to 218.
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