WASHINGTON — The Republican Party is pinning its hopes on the Democrats’ unfavorable reputation to help them avoid a significant defeat in the upcoming midterm elections this November.
While many polls highlight a general dissatisfaction with the economic situation, the military operations in Iran, and President Trump’s administration, these same surveys surprisingly show Republicans enjoying higher favorability ratings than their Democratic counterparts.
John Thomas, a seasoned strategist with the GOP at Nestpoint, shared with The Post that, “Typically, midterm elections serve as a referendum on the ruling party, but this scenario offers Republicans a unique opportunity. Voters might hesitate to change course due to the Democrats’ lower favorability numbers.”
He further emphasized the challenges ahead, stating, “It’s going to be extraordinarily difficult. Nevertheless, if President Trump and the Republicans manage their closing strategies and messages effectively, they might just clinch a win,” particularly in terms of retaining control of the House. Success, however, relies on flawless execution, he noted.
House Speaker Mike Johnson from Louisiana has confidently expressed optimism about the midterms, attributing it to the Democrats’ historically low approval ratings. Despite this public confidence, many Republicans privately acknowledge the possibility of losing their hold on the House come November.
Historically, since 1938, the party in the White House has faced losses in the House of Representatives in every midterm election except for two instances, indicating the challenge Republicans face.
But Johnson’s rosy conviction gained a little bit of credence this week after CNN data guru Harry Enten spotlighted how Democrats are “running behind their previous benchmarks,” though he has assessed that they are still likely to flip the House.
During the 2006 blue wave cycle, Democrats netted an 18-point higher net favorability than Republicans and a 12-point higher net favorability in the 2018 blue wave year, at this stage of those elections.
Currently, Republicans’ favorability is 5 points higher than the Democrats’.
“It’s a 2028 problem, not a 2026 problem, and it’s a result of Democrats [being] mad at party leadership, not people who are going to vote Republican over Democrat,” one Democratic strategist bluntly told The Post. “Look at the double haters … by like 33 points, they say they are going to vote for Dems.”
“I don’t think it matters at all for the midterms and presuming Dems win the midterms, that will get better.”
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Viet Shelton stressed that the favorability data some Republicans are leaning on to paint a more favorable picture about their midterm prospects shows them losing the House.
“You know you’re cooked when the best argument your political operatives have is ‘all the data shows we’re going to lose the majority, but hopefully not by that much!” Shelton told The Post.
GOP operatives are hoping to put Democrats on defense for lurching too far to the left or having ties to the fringe of their party. In Michigan, for example, Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who is currently polling in third place, has declined to disavow left-wing livestreamer Hasan Piker.
Piker, a nephew of “Young Turks” Cenk Uygur, claimed in a 2019 stream that “America deserved 9/11″ and later said that the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack was a “direct consequence” of Israeli actions, adding that if the terror group engaged in rape, it “doesn’t change the dynamic for me.”
El-Sayed has distanced himself from some of Piker’s remarks but called for pressure for him to denounce the livestreamer part of cancel culture. The two leading Democrats in the race have ripped his ties to Piker.
“There’s a chorus of left-wing influencers paid to provoke, not to win — and the message they send is a real liability to our national brand,” former Jill Biden’s spokesman Michael LaRosa explained.
“Whenever Democrats have gained power, our majorities were made in the ideological middle, not at the extremes.”
LaRosa stressed that the “midterms are decided race by race, shaped by candidate personalities and quirky local dynamics—and that’s where Democrats have the advantage.”
Despite the branding concerns, Democrats are 5.8 percentage points ahead of Republicans in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of a generic congressional vote. They had a 7.5 percentage point lead in RCP at this stage of the 2018 race.
Democrats have also pointed to their string of success in special elections, off-year races, and even in primaries. During the Texas Senate primary last month, for example, Democrats had a higher turnout than Republicans. Some have pointed to that as a bellwether for turnout in November.
On average, Democrats have overperformed in special elections by 12.9 percentage points and won or overperformed in 264 of 295 since last year, according to data from the Democratic National Committee.
“Donald Trump and Republicans are rattled to their core as Democrats continue to notch major flips and overperformances across the country,” DNC Chairman Ken Martin told The Post in a statement.
“We have momentum on our side, but we refuse to take a single day for granted. Democrats are all hands on deck ahead of November, because it’s time to send the Republicans packing.”
This week, Republicans took solace in one of the Democratic stars of the 2025 off-year elections, Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger (D), clocking in at one of the worst approval ratings for a governor of that state at this stage since the 1990s in a Washington Post-Schar School poll.
Months into her term, she notched a 47% to 46% approval-to-disapproval rating in that survey, despite her landslide victory of over 15 percentage points last year.
“Democrats … are running on nothing but Trump Derangement Syndrome and America hatred, so it’s no surprise their poll numbers are in the gutter,” Republican National Committee press secretary Kiersten Pels chided.
Trump is keen on forestalling a Democratic return to power in the House, which will make his final two years in office a nightmare with constant investigations into him.
In an attempt to prevent that, he is planning to go “all in” on boosting Republicans in November, his top advisers told The Post earlier this year.
