By now you all know that I don't trust the polls very much, and that you shouldn't either. That's quadruply true when it comes to using them for election prediction, because the outcomes are binary—either you win, or you lose—and pollsters are terrible at coming up with a sample that reflects who will show up at the polls, which is the only thing that matters when it comes to predicting election outcomes.
With that said, polls are not completely worthless; they can provide broad indicators of public opinion, and, aside from anecdotal data, they are the best we have to gauge what people are thinking. You can at least throw them into the pile of unreliable data and try to discern something close to reality when it comes to public opinion.
RealClearPolitics tries to do this with their aggregation of polls. It, too, is imperfect, but you get an idea of trends at least. And the trends are not looking as good for Democrats as you would expect, given the sour mood we all perceive in our fellow Americans.
The polling, at least at first glance, looks really troubling for President Trump, which should surprise no one. Gas prices are high, which is one of the biggest indicators of how people view the economy, and the Iran war is dragging on far longer than Trump promised. Inflation, while way down from the Biden years and even below economists' expectations, is still worryingly high, leading to interest rates that raise the cost of many things.
And, of course, off-year elections tend to be "correction" years, where voters rein in the party in power.
But, as CNN's Harry Enten points out, for all the trouble Republicans are in, Democrats are not benefiting to the extent you would imagine given these conditions. Voters may be sour on President Trump at the moment, but they are hardly flocking to Democrats.
CNN’s Harry Enten TAKES A BUZZSAW to the Democrats’ Hopes of Blue Wave: “The American people SIMPLY put are not BUYING what Democrats are selling on Iran. They still trust Republicans MORE... The Democratic Party in the minds of the American public are weak, weak, weak... The… pic.twitter.com/PMRjMC5z0d
— RedWave Press (@RedWavePress) July 27, 2026
That corresponds with other data points we can see, not the least of which is that the Democratic Party is broke. Establishment Democrats have lost faith in the Party, are at war with the rising faction of socialists who are riding a wave, and have not moved one iota away from the extreme positions they adopted in 2024 to their detriment.
Establishment Democrats have one platform—hate Trump—and the socialists have another—hate America.
CNN acknowledges that the majority of Americans know Democrats will hurt their cost of living:
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) July 27, 2026
“The impact of Democratic policies on your cost of living...hurt or wouldn’t change it, the clear majority, nearly 3 in 5, 59%.” pic.twitter.com/4TThx9buN6
The first is only compelling to a diminishing share of the electorate, who may have their gripes with Trump but are exhausted by the steady stream of invective that never matches reality. The second appeals to only about a third of the electorate at best, and probably closer to 20%, and repels the majority of the rest. But since even the establishment Democrats depend on those voters because they provide the margin of victory in elections, they can't dump them without risking everything.
The idea that the socialists have no place to go no longer holds so strongly, and with the fall of several prominent Democrats in primaries, it's very risky to anger the Bolsheviks.
None of this means that Democrats can't pick up enough seats to seize control of one or both legislative bodies, but it certainly lowers the probability and the potential margins of victory they can expect. Pravda can spin things only so much when the loudest voices in the Democratic Party, and by far the most charismatic, are all extremists.
It's way too early to even guess at the likely outcomes this November, but the trend isn't great for Democrats.
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