Polls Point to a Democratic Sweep in the Midterms as Republicans Push Back

Democrats need just four more seats to flip the House of Representatives, and the polling points to them getting them comfortably, the ABC reports. The Senate is the bigger prize and the harder climb: Democrats must hold four tight seats and take four more to grab the majority. Red-state races in Texas, Kansas, Alaska, Iowa and Ohio have turned competitive, North Carolina looks likely to flip, and Michigan is a coin toss in a state Trump won two years ago.

The drag on Trump's party has a name: Iran. Jessica Taylor of the Cook Political Report says the president's approval ratings were already soft before March, but launching an unpopular war that pushed gasoline and diesel prices higher has left Republicans in deeper trouble. "Pursuing an unpopular war that drove prices ... further up has only put his party in more peril," she said. Taylor also cautioned that polls are a snapshot, not a prophecy, and that many of the individual results are extremely close.

Analysts including the Cook Political Report's founder are calling it a "red undertow" rather than a blue wave, because voters are sour on incumbents of every stripe rather than smitten with Democrats. Polls in 2024 were similarly tight, and Trump went on to sweep the swing states. The Republican National Committee's Natalie Baldassarre says national polls routinely undercount the GOP, and that Trump's barnstorming has Republicans ready to "fight, defy history, and protect our majorities."

Republican pollster Patrick Ruffini still calls the environment "genuinely bad" for his own side, telling the ABC the GOP looks weaker this late in a cycle than he can remember. He dug through more than 3,000 Senate polls from the past eight years and found 73 per cent overstated the Democratic candidate — a figure that hits 93 per cent in Iowa, Ohio and Michigan. Ruffini says that doesn't guarantee a repeat, and warns the real risk is uneven error, state by state: he'd trust a blue Texas long before a blue Iowa.

Follow the money for clues. The analytics firm AdImpact calculated Republicans were outspending Democrats across 10 battleground Senate races a week out from election day, with MAGA Inc — the PAC tied to the president — having already spent over $US300 million. Trump has pledged another $US100 million for Republican candidates, and mega-donors like Elon Musk are spending through their own PACs. Texas has soaked up more than $US500 million, Kansas ad spending jumped tenfold, and in North Carolina the top Senate Republican spending group pulled its funding in early October — a sign it already saw the seat going to Democrat Roy Cooper.

Then there's the man himself. Trump has mostly rallied in deeply red territory and flatly rejects the numbers: "Look, the polls are fake," he said last week, adding that many are "rigged." Democrats aren't counting the Senate either — former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel told The New Yorker he's only "cautiously optimistic" about that chamber, though he's more confident about the House. One counterweight for the GOP: in this year's off-cycle governor races, Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia beat their polling and won easily.