Dem
47
GOP
53
It is still nearly a year until the next general election, so any numbers we mention right now must be taken with at least a dozen grains of salt. When we get to May of next year, then we'll be able to write... well, that it's still 6 months to the election, so any numbers we mention must be taken with at least half a dozen grains of salt. But once we hit mid-August or so? Then we're cooking with gas.
Anyhow, PBS/NPR/Marist has just released their latest, and it's full of holiday tidings for the blue team. The topline number is this: On the generic House ballot, 55% of respondents favor "the Democrat" and 41% favor "the Republican." That's a 14-point spread, the biggest Marist has recorded since 2017, right before a blue wave election. And the movement toward the Democrats is driven mostly by independents, who break more than 2-to-1 for the blue team (61% to 28%).
The pollster also asked which issue should be the government's top priority right now. Far and away, the top issue was lowering prices (57%). The careful reader will notice that is the issue that Democrats have been hammering on, to the exclusion of nearly all else, for the last 6 months. At the same time, Israel and Gaza, which was so salient last year, and which split the Democratic Party, has nearly dropped off the radar (6%). Trump's overall signature issue, immigration, is at 16%. And Trump's issue du jour, drug trafficking, barely has a pulse, at 4%. Trump and the Republicans could try to recalibrate, but that's not how he works, generally speaking. And it's not too easy for other Republican politicians to carve out different messaging from a sitting president. Further, even if Trump and the Republicans do change course, they may have already lost the narrative on affordability to the Democrats.
There's one other number from the poll worth noting, before we move on. Marist has Trump's approval rating at 39%, with 56% disapproving. That's 17 points underwater, obviously, but it's also mid-range for him, at least at the moment. What we mean is that, depending on the pollster, he's between about 36% and about 42% right now (with a couple of lower outliers and a couple of higher outliers). What this suggests is that the sample for the Marist poll was not especially Trumpy or anti-Trumpy, and so its topline numbers are likely not out of whack.
Meanwhile, Politico commissioned some focus groups in New Jersey and Virginia, to find out why Govs.-elect Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) and Abigail Spanberger (D-VA) won with such ease. The particular focus of the focus groups was voters who previously voted for Donald Trump, but who backed one of the two Democrats in November of this year. And the findings were that the Trump-jumpers were influenced by three things: (1) the candidates talked about kitchen-table issues, (2) the candidates avoided negativity and finger-pointing at the Republicans and (3) the candidates avoided association with the more lefty elements of the party, and in particular association with stances on social issues and immigration that are unpopular with anyone on the center or the right of the political spectrum.
In short, a general 2026 playbook for the Democrats has emerged, and it's backed by proof-of-concept in New Jersey, Virginia, Georgia, and other places. Will Democrats be able to stay on script, though? Readers may not know this, but this is a party that is not known for its disciplined messaging. That said, there are a lot of voters out there who are desperate to rein Donald Trump in, as much as is possible, at all costs. And our preliminary gut feel is that the lefty voters who really, really care about social justice are breathing deeply, and (once again) resigning themselves to the notion that this is not going to be the election for that. Before you can plausibly move forward with social justice, you first have to put a stop to the social injustice that is all around these days.
There was one other bit of data yesterday that is good news for the Democrats, albeit in a Machiavellian way, such that no Democratic officeholder would dare say anything publicly. However, the net loss of blue-collar jobs this year is up to 65,000 positions. This is due to the construction sector being flat, and the mining, transportation and manufacturing sectors all shrinking. Those sectors are the four most significant utilizers of blue-collar labor.
Overall, unemployment is up to 4.6%, which is as high as it's been since the pandemic. Before that, the last time it hit 4.6% was in 2017. Maybe all of this is partly Trump's fault, and maybe it's not. After all, we've written at least 100 times that some old-school blue-collar industries (e.g., coal mining) are headed the way of the dodo, and it's only a matter of time. That said, Trump made lots of big promises to blue-collar workers. And if he's not delivering—and the numbers say he's not—that will dovetail nicely with Democratic messaging along the lines of "We're the ones who will fix the economy, and here's how."
As we note at the start of this item, it's a long time until next year's elections. But all of these numbers should definitely have the GOP nervous. Then, consider this question: What, exactly, is likely to happen next year that is going to improve upon these trendlines? The answer to that question—or, perhaps more accurately, the lack of an answer—should have Republicans sweating bullets. (Z)