April 25, 2024

Permission to republish original opeds and cartoons granted.

Could Democrats’ Rock-Bottom Approval Ratings And Meager Lead In The Generic Congressional Ballot Indicate Republicans Are In A Better Position For 2026 Midterms?   

By Manzanita Miller  

Congressional Democrats just received their lowest approval rating from the public in over two decades, calling into jeopardy the party’s plan to regain power in the 2026 midterm elections and obstruct President Donald Trump’s bold America First overhaul of the country.    

A new Gallup poll conducted April 1-14 shows the nation’s confidence in Congressional Democrats is at an all-time low, with just 25 percent of Americans holding a great or fair amount of confidence in Democratic leaders.     

This crushing low in public confidence may help to explain why Democrats – who would be expected to regain substantial power in the midterm elections based on historic precedent – are leading by less than two percentage points in early generic congressional ballot surveys.  

Congressional Democrats are currently sitting at a record low of just 25 points in terms of public confidence according to the Gallup survey. This clocks in a full nine percentage points below the party’s previous record low of 34 percent, recorded in 2023. Democrats’ current confidence rating is a full twenty percentage points below the party’s average confidence rating of 45 percent over the past two-and-a-half decades.   

Furthermore, Democrats current approval rating sits about twenty percentage points below where it was in two historic midterm election cycles – 2006 under President Geroge W. Bush and 2018 under President Trump – where Democrats, as the out-of-power party, made significant inroads in the midterm cycle.   

Much of the decline in public confidence now comes from within the Democratic Party itself, and much of the decline can be attributed to concerns that Congressional Democrats are failing to provide adequate leadership on the economy, according to the Gallup survey.  

As Gallup points out, Democratic Congressional leaders’ rating among registered Democrats has fallen to the lowest point on record. When asked specifically to rate their confidence in Congressional Democrats’ economic approach, well under half of Democrats say they believe Congressional Democrats will do the right thing for the economy – just 39 percent. Under a quarter of independents – 22 percent – and 18 percent of Republicams say they believe Congressional Democrats will do the right thing for the economy.     

Clearly, Democrats’ mismanagement of the economy – and resistance to measures that could revitalize America’s energy independence, manufacturing sector, and availability of well-paying jobs for natural-born-citizens – are hurting the party.   

This explains in part why Congressional Democrats are leading against Republicans in the generic congressional ballot by so few points compared to previous elections with a Republican president in the White House.    

According to the latest generic congressional ballot survey for the 2026 midterm elections compiled by Real Clear Politics, Democrats are leading Republicans by a mere 1.5 percentage points, or 45.8 percent to 44.3 percent.  

While this hints that Democrats may take advantage of out-party precedent and win back a number of seats in the midterms, Democrats’ rock-bottom public approval ratings and meager lead in the generic congressional ballot hint at a blunted midterm effect.   

In two previous midterm cycles under a Republican president that favored congressional Democrats – 2006 under Geroge W. Bush and 2018 under President Trump – Democrats led the generic congressional ballot by significantly more than they are now, and the party’s approval rating was nearly twice as high as it is now.   

In 2006 amid growing backlash over the Iraq War, Democrats surged in the generic ballot. Democrats led the Real Clear Politics generic congressional ballot poll by 11.5 points and a CNN poll from May of that year showed Democrats ahead by a whopping 14 points.   

Gallup survey data from mid-2005, which is equivalent to where we are now in the pre-midterm election cycle, shows that Democrats sat at an approval rating of 42 percent – which is 17 points above where it is right now.      

Then in 2018, with President Trump in office, Democrats held a sustained lead of around 8 to 10 points in the months leading up to Election Day. The Pew Research Center showed Democrats with a 52 percent to 42 percent advantage over Republicans in September 2018, and Democrats  led the Real Clear Politics generic congressional ballot by 7.3 points – a much greater lead than they hold now.      

In mid-2017, the year before the midterm elections, Gallup survey data showed that Congressional Democrats enjoyed an approval rating of 46 percent – a full 21 percentage points above where it sits now.    

The data is clear – in previous modern elections with a Republican president where Democrats were favored in the midterm elections, not only were Democrats ahead in the generic ballot by 5.8 points to 10 points more than they are now, but the party’s approval rating was around 20 points higher than it is now.  

While it is still early, if Democrats are banking on anti-Trump sentiment and midterm precedent to carry them across the finish line in 2026, they may be surprised to find the “Blue Wave” they hope for is less pronounced than expected.   

The political and economic landscape has shifted substantially since the midterm elections in 2006 and 2018 which favored Democrats. With just 25 percent of Americans expressing confidence in Congressional Democrats – the lowest rating in over two decades – and a razor-thin lead in the generic ballot, the party faces a credibility crisis that could blunt their gains in 2026.  

Manzanita Miller is the senior political analyst at Americans for Limited Government Foundation.  

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/04/could-democrats-rock-bottom-approval-ratings-and-meager-lead-in-the-generic-congressional-ballot-indicate-republicans-are-in-a-better-position-for-2026-midterms/  

President Trump And Republicans Would Have Never Won Pennsylvania, Michigan And Wisconsin Without The Trump Trade Agenda 

By Robert Romano 

In 2016, Americans for Limited Government teamed up with the late, great Pat Caddell to test President Donald Trump’s trade agenda in a national poll performed Feb. 23, 2016 to March 3, 2016 during the heart of the Republican primary.  

It tested a critical assumption made by Trump’s opponents: That Republicans supported the free trade agenda and would overwhelmingly oppose Trump on that basis. It found 59 percent of Republicans agreeing that “Over last two decades, free trade agreements signed by the U.S. were more of a benefit to other countries.” Only 4 percent said more of a benefit to the U.S. and another 14 percent said equally beneficial. 

But it wasn’t just Republicans. 46 percent of independents agreed free trade was more of a benefit to other countries, with only 9 percent saying it benefitted the U.S. more and just 15 percent saying equally beneficial. Similarly, 35 percent of Democrats agreed free trade was more a benefit to other countries, with just 12 percent saying it benefitted the U.S. more and 26 percent saying equally beneficial. 

Overall, it was 46 percent who said more of a benefit to other countries, 9 percent who said more of a benefit to the U.S. and 18 percent who said equally beneficial. In short, 46 percent who thought it was bad for the U.S., 27 percent who thought it was good and another 27 percent who didn’t know.  

We all know what happened next. Trump easily won the Republican primary in 2016 on that basis and went on to defeat Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin to win the Electoral College as Trump did well with union and non-union working-class households, without which Republicans might have had great difficulty putting together a winning Electoral College map. 

In short, without his America First policies on trade and promises on tariffs, President Trump might never have been elected in the first place. Naturally, now that Trump’s trade agenda is finally being implemented, the same losers from 2016 and 2024 are crawling out of the woodwork to point to the unsurprising crosswinds the President is encountering financially and economically as countries come to the table to deal with the U.S. on trade.  

The trade policies are actually no surprise unless companies simply hadn't been paying attention for the past decade to the new reality of American politics. We’ve hollowed out our industrial base and if there was ever a major war we would depend on our enemies for critical resources. Not even Joe Biden dared to remove the tariffs on China during his term in office.  

As for the economy, following peak inflation there has been a recession in 11 out of 12 cases going back to 1948 usually withing a year or two, the one exception being the unexpected Covid recession which did not follow a peak inflation event, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.  

Still, that's almost a 92 percent certainty that following the 9.1 percent peak inflation in June 2022, we would see a recession within a few years, if not one already. When you overheat the economy like that, a downturn is an expected feature. Suffice to say, this period had all of the hallmarks: a 10-year, 2-year treasuries inversion and followed by an uninversion (the uninversion is when unemployment tends to rise), unemployment increased by 1.3 million from January 2023 to more than 7 million today (read that again: unemployment has been rising for two years now), and consumer credit is in outright contraction, etc. but for whatever reason, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the nation’s recession bookkeeper, still has not recorded a recession, either indicating that was the extent of the slowdown and then inflation should resume as it normally does — or perhaps that the larger hit is still coming.  

In other words, the worst could be yet to come, but if so, that very well might have been true even if Kamala Harris had won the election. Meaning whoever won the election was going to inherit a pretty weak economy.  

Either way, President Trump appears to have no intention of throwing out the political and economic program that got him elected because a recession could be lurking. Instead, he says he is going to keep his promises, come what may.  

It’s not a bad bet. Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all had recessions within their first couple of years in office and all went on to reelected relatively easily. If anything, it's better politically to get an economic downturn over with as quickly as possible. Whereas the closer recessions come to the presidential cycle — see 1980, 1992, 2008 and 2020 — the worse it is for the incumbents.  

President Trump promised tax relief and better trade deals in 2024 and he's working for both, exactly as he said he would. The U.S. may yet have a downturn, but if so, that likely was unavoidable (it takes hubris to think such events are entirely avoidable) after the high inflation and weak economy that he inherited. All Congress and the President can do is put in place the best policies they believe can foster a strong recovery should the worst come and position the U.S. to be more self-sufficient on critical national security and military production lines.  

Politically, Republicans in the long run would regret abandoning Trump's trade agenda but many of them, having lost power within the party, will continue trying to demoralize the President’s supporters. In spite of those efforts, President Trump has already done what is necessary to bring our trade partners to the table, isolate China and the long run, the nation could ultimately be better off for it. We can thank him later! 

Robert Romano is the Executive Director of Americans for Limited Government Foundation.  

To view online: https://dailytorch.com/2025/04/president-trump-and-republicans-would-have-never-won-pennsylvania-michigan-and-wisconsin-without-the-trump-trade-agenda/