New poll reveals how Trump's low approval might affect midterms

Amna Nawaz:

With voting for the midterm elections already under way in some states, President Trump is asking voters to pretend he's on the ballot. A new PBS News/NPR/Marist poll finds that people are, but that could be bad news for his party. We found Democratic congressional candidates hold a significant lead over Republicans.

Lisa Desjardins is here with more insights from that poll.

So, Lisa, seven weeks until Election Day. What exactly do the polls show us about who has the edge going into midterms?

Lisa Desjardins:

Well, as viewers know, good polling is not an exact map. It is more of a compass. It shows trends and directions.

And this poll shows very clear trends, and they are all universally good for Democrats. Let's look at the overall generic ballot here. Registered voters prefer Democrats over Republicans by 12 points in our poll. Now, that's the same gap that we saw around this time in Trump's first midterm in 2018. And that was a banner year for Democrats.

Fueling this, independents. Look at this. They break decidedly four Democrats, with 57 percent of independents in our poll saying they would vote for a Democrat for Congress. Now, independents are also big movers here, because this gap that we see right now for independents toward Democrats, that is, let me see, three times as large as the gap that they had in 2018.

Also, when you look at the parties, there's an enthusiasm gap, Democrats much more highly motivated. MAGA Republicans are motivated, but the rest of the Republican Party not as much.

Amna Nawaz:

So, as we mentioned earlier, at that recent Republican Midterm Convention, the president said: "Pretend I'm on the ballot."

How is that working?

Lisa Desjardins:

It is working for Democrats,

Let's take a look. When we ask what is motivating their choice for Congress, nearly twice as many voters say they are voting specifically against Trump, rather than voting for him. And we wanted to dig in more on the voter groups on that.

Among voters who identify with MAGA, 71 percent say, yes, they are voting this election to support Trump. And that is a loyal coalition. That is still the majority of Republicans. But here's where the Republicans have a problem, independents again. More than half say their congressional vote is specifically against Trump.

That's eye-popping. That is a coalition of people without a party allegiance, but they are voting against someone, against Trump. Now, there's other bad news for the president as well in this poll. When we looked at who strongly disapproves of President Trump, that number is 53 percent. That is his highest number to date in our poll.

Amna Nawaz:

Let's take a closer look at the issues behind this now.

Both parties are campaigning on affordability and on costs. There is, of course, the ongoing war with Iran. There's a continuing immigration crackdown. How are voters looking at those issues?

Lisa Desjardins:

Right. Again, thinking about a poll as a compass, it is rare to see the needle in a compass flip so much as we are seeing now.

On every issue we asked about, Democrats now have an advantage. Let's look at all of them all together there. Who would better handle the economy? Voters prefer Democrats by eight points? One reason, that next line. Democrats are favored by double digits on gas prices.

They're leading on foreign policy and Democrats are favored on immigration. That has been Trump's strong suit, but no more. Let's look at what happened here over time. Just a few years ago, in 2022, Republicans were favored on immigration by a 15-point margin, and that gap stayed around in '24.

But now we see that it has caught up. Voters are essentially saying they think both parties are equally able or maybe equally unable to handle immigration. And independents, in particular, are abandoning Republicans on immigration.

Amna Nawaz:

All right, Lisa, we know mail-in ballots have already gone out in some states now. The president has repeatedly attacked without evidence that system of voting. How confident are voters in mail-in voting?

Lisa Desjardins:

Let's look. It's a little bit mixed. We asked how much fraud people see in mail-in voting. The majority of people, 55 percent, said they don't see much. But there is a large group, 41 percent, who see some.

We asked about the Postal Service as well. A clear majority in our polls said their confidence that the Postal Service can get the mail out for elections on time this year. But, again, about 40 percent not confident. There's a partisan divide here. It is Republicans who see the fraud. We have not seen any evidence.

In fact, to the contrary, our election systems have proven that there is very little fraud, from what we know. However, there is one piece of good news; 75 percent of people in our poll say they do have confidence across parties, majorities, in their local and state election officials.

Amna Nawaz:

All right, Lisa Desjardins, thank you very much.

Lisa Desjardins:

You're welcome.