Your midterms study guide

America, Actually with Astead Herndon

Astead Herndon explores the key issues shaping the 2026 midterm elections through audience questions, examining voter priorities, party dynamics, and concerns about election

Key takeaways

• Donald Trump's approval ratings have hit historic lows even among his base, driven by economic dissatisfaction and fallout from the Epstein files controversy.
• Despite declining popularity, Trump maintains control over Republican primaries due to loyal primary voters, ensuring continued influence in Congress.

Main topics

• Trump's declining popularity among Republicans
• Democratic Party internal divisions

Notable quotes

"He was no longer the rich guy fighting against the elite insiders. He was a member of the Insider Club."

Conclusion

The 2026 midterms will be shaped less by traditional party platforms and more by deep cultural, economic, and foreign policy divides. While Trump's

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:00) We've already done a lot of reporting this year. We went to a data center in New Jersey. We talked to redistricting volunteers in Virginia. I argued with a 24-year-old about whether Trump was still cool or not, and we went to his UFC event in Washington, D.C. But with the midterms right around the corner, I wanted to focus this week on a more simple question. What matters most to voters when it comes to November? So this week, we're going to do something a little different and answer your audience questions. And y'all had a lot. Who are the real swing voters? Speaker 7 (0:33) How data centers will be affecting the election. Where a Speaker 6 (0:37) PAC is having the most influence. Whether mail and voting is really being suppressed. I Speaker 5 (0:44) love these questions because your lines of inquiry match up perfectly with the reporting we've done. over the past year. So this week, we're going to answer some of your concerns and pull out the trends that we have seen throughout our time on the road. Five things you need to know about this year's midterm elections. The stakes, the candidates, the issues. We're cutting through all the noise. It's a midterm study guide. Let's dig in. Speaker 2 (1:17) Hey, everybody. Cassidy Hubberth here. This week on And Mom, entrepreneur and licensed therapist Nina Westbrook reveals what surprised her about having girls, why she became a marriage and family therapist, and how she got the nickname Calm Queen. Check out the latest episode of And Mom wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 4 (1:38) Haven't had much luck on the dating apps lately? Don't worry. It's not just you. It does seem like across sex and dating and partnership, cohabitation, marriage, all of these behaviors are kind of on the decline. How to fight the romance slump and find a connection in real life. That's this week on Explain It To Me. New episodes Sundays, wherever you get your podcasts. Speaker 5 (2:12) Okay, so here's five things you need to know about the upcoming midterm elections. The first is that both parties have changed significantly since 2024. On the Republican side, the most important thing to know is that Donald Trump is deeply and increasingly unpopular. The numbers are quite staggering. The latest NBC News survey shows Donald Trump at his lowest approval rating ever. And importantly, That number is driven by a change among Trump's own base. 41 % of Republicans strongly approve of Trump's job performance. That's down 11 percentage points from the spring. And 62 % of self-identified MAGA Republicans support the president. That's down from 71 % in the spring. Even Trump's own allies are admitting the president may be in some trouble when it comes to the midterms. Here's a clip from my interview with C.J. Pearson, the MAGA influencer and mega Trump fan who we talked to a few weeks ago. We have to reorient the Speaker 8 (3:15) conversation that we're having as a party around these domestic issues. Or if not, we will lose disastrously in November. Speaker 5 (3:21) But the question is, why is Donald Trump so unpopular? And the answer starts with the economy. People simply feel like Donald Trump hasn't followed through on his core campaign promise, lowering costs. And while that started with tariffs, it's only gotten worse when we think about rising gas prices or the ongoing war with Iran. We've heard about this a lot all over our travels, like when we were out in Pennsylvania. I voted for Speaker 7 (3:49) him with his promises to American people. And I think he's let us down. The controlling of the prices has skyrocketed. Speaker 5 (3:58) We also heard this when we talked to people at Trump's UFC event in Washington, D.C. I'm Speaker 7 (4:03) middle class. I want things that affect my life. I want to see change in my regular day to day. It's like and I don't see that. Speaker 5 (4:09) But the economy isn't the only reason that Trump is increasingly unpopular in his second term. I think the Epstein files also has a lot to do with it. You know, Trump got in a lot of trouble. for not releasing the Epstein files in a timely and transparent fashion. And we still hear about it on the campaign trail, particularly from some Republicans. And I think this issue had a big effect on people's perception of him. He was no longer the rich guy fighting against the elite insiders. He was a member of the Insider Club. And people have perceived that. Speaker 3 (4:43) After, you know, the Epstein files and everything, should have just like ramped Speaker 5 (4:47) up Speaker 3 (4:47) with how he's been acting. I Speaker 5 (4:49) feel like it was a lot more, you know, chill before that. But while Trump remains unpopular, that doesn't mean that he's powerless. Because he's won big in Republican primaries this year. And that is driving the loyalty between him and the Republicans in Congress. Trump. took out his political enemies like Republican Thomas Massey or Texas Senator John Cornyn. And while Trump's approval rating has diminished, he still remains in complete control of Republicans in Congress who have refused to break from him. The reason why is because the most loyal primary voters are still mega Trump fans. On the Democratic side, it's been an all-out civil war. as the party tries to recover from the embarrassment of the 2024 presidential election. Now, most of these fights have pit the progressive left wing against the moderate establishment wing. But I think it's a mistake to reduce it just to ideology. Democrats are rethinking who they are and who they fight for. And it's a conversation that is starting now, but won't conclude until the 2028 presidential primary. Here's how Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed described the stakes to me in a recent interview. For a long time, the Democratic Party has rested on its laurels that we're not that, we don't win because he's so bad. We win because he's so bad and we're so good. El-Sayed is a strong supporter of Medicare for All and abolishing ICE, two of the signature policies of the progressive left. But what's the signature policy of the moderate establishment wing? That question's harder to answer because most moderates would rather talk about stopping Trump or what they don't like about the left. It's been a struggle to get them to talk about their own vision. Here's a clip from my interview with Congressman Jim Clyburn of South Carolina. This country is Speaker 7 (6:45) teetering on Speaker 5 (6:46) the Speaker 7 (6:46) brink. Speaker 5 (6:47) And Speaker 7 (6:47) those of us who know this history, and those of us who know this system, and those of us who have the energy. to fight it, it better stay Speaker 5 (6:57) in this fight. My second big takeaway is about the United States' relationship with Israel. This has become a huge issue for voters, and we see it playing out all across the country. You know, it may have started in the Biden administration, but the issue has certainly become more visceral, particularly since the United States ignited a war with Iran at the urging of the Israeli government. Public opinion has soured drastically on Israel. And you can already see it affecting the midterms. Just recently, Vice President J.D. Vance faced significant criticism from Republicans for his refusal to disavow Tucker Carlson, the podcaster and former TV host who's become a vocal critic of the Israeli government and the Trump administration. Tucker is a friend of mine. Tucker is a friend despite the fact that we disagree on a number of things. And I'm not going to play the Speaker 8 (7:47) game where I throw friends under the bus because I have political disagreements with them. Speaker 5 (7:52) On the Democratic side, the Israel question may be best epitomized by the fight over Hassan Piker, the leftist Twitch streamer who has begun campaigning with progressive candidates all across the country. In our interview, Piker was clear. He wants to change the Democratic Party, make it more vocally anti-war, more vocally anti-Israel. He said there's no way the Democratic nominee in the next presidential primary can be pro-Israel. Any kind of like... Sympathetic approach to Israel in 2028 will be electoral poison. You won't be able to make it out of the Democratic primary. So it's not even a concern for me at all. Progressive congressional candidates like Daria Liza Avila Chevalier, who defeated a Democratic incumbent in New York City, have also made a similar case. She articulated what amounts to a left-wing argument for America first, saying people want their tax dollars invested in communities at home. not fighting foreign wars. Speaker