48 Days Until the Midterms: Is a Blue Wave Coming?
The Daily
The Daily examines the latest political landscape ahead of the midterm elections, focusing on a new New York Times/Siena poll showing Democr
Key takeaways
- Democrats have a strong national polling edge, comparable to the 2018 blue wave, suggesting potential control of both House and Senate.
Main topics
- Midterm election polling
- Trump's influence on Republican candidates
Notable quotes
"He asks this crowd to make a pledge to him, not to the country, not even to the Republican Party, to him."
Conclusion
While Democrats appear poised for a significant midterm victory based on current polling
Transcript preview
Speaker 6 (0:00) I'm John Caramonica, a critic at The New York Times. And I'm Joe Cascarelli, a culture reporter at The Times. Together we host PopCast, a weekly Speaker 4 (0:07) pop culture chat show where we speak to the biggest musicians, actors, internet celebrities, and Speaker 6 (0:12) more. We've had Bad Bunny, Olivia Rodrigo, and Anne Hathaway. We've also hosted live performances with Andre 3000 and Erykah Badu. Plus, we end every conversation with a snack. Catch new episodes of PopCast every week on YouTube. And Speaker 8 (0:25) anywhere you get your podcasts. Speaker 8 (0:29) From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. With fewer than 50 days until the midterm elections, a major new poll from The Times suggests that Democrats have a real shot at winning control of both chambers of Congress as an unpopular president insists on making the election all about himself. Speaker 8 (0:56) And yet, serious obstacles remain in the Democrats' way, including a half-billion-dollar financial advantage for Republicans. Today, I talk about all of that with three of my colleagues, national political correspondent Shane Goldmacher, White House reporter Maggie Haberman, and chief political analyst Nate Cohn. It's Wednesday, September 16th. Speaker 8 (1:33) Hey, everybody. Hello. Hi. Speaker 1 (1:35) Hello. Speaker 8 (1:36) Maggie, Nate, Shane, welcome to the first midterm election roundtable for the general election. We really like to slice the salami really thin when it comes to the superlatives for these roundtables. This Speaker 1 (1:50) is Speaker 8 (1:50) like Speaker 1 (1:50) the assistant to the assistant regional manager. Exactly. Thank you. Appreciate it. That's Speaker 8 (1:53) what Speaker 1 (1:53) this roundtable is. Speaker 8 (1:54) It's good. The first midterm election roundtable for the general, by which I mean... The primaries are over. Both parties have picked all their nominees. And now in 48 days to be exact, control of the U.S. House and the U.S. Senate will be determined in hundreds of elections across the country, which is going Speaker 7 (2:15) to be the subject of our conversation today. Speaker 8 (2:16) Nate, I want to begin with you. Please. Because as we sit here on Tuesday, the Times just within the past few hours released a major new poll about these midterm elections. Top line, what did you all find? Speaker 5 (2:32) Top line, we found Democrats well-positioned to make major gains this fall. They led Republicans by nearly nine points in the race for Congress. And that's wave territory, which is the kind of election where one party sweeps the other party out of the most competitive states and districts. Speaker 8 (2:50) When's the last time we had a wave election with the kind of numbers that this poll found? Nine? points up for Democrats. It's almost Speaker 5 (2:59) exactly the same as the Democratic margin from 2018, Trump's first midterm election. And it's larger than other recent wave elections in recent decades, like 1994, 2006, Speaker 8 (3:10) or 2010. 1994, just as a reminder, was the year that Republicans swept into office. Newt Gingrich became House Speaker, a huge historical moment for Republicans in 2018, a huge historical victory for Democrats. That's right. Speaker 5 (3:24) Now, how this big national advantage translates into control of the House and the Senate is a little more complicated. But you would absolutely say that the Democrats are favored to take the House, and they would have a real chance to take the Senate as well, where they have a real uphill climb. But with this kind of national advantage, they would have a serious chance to put the red states they need into play. Speaker 8 (3:44) Okay, Shane and Maggie, please react to this pretty important new development in the way we think about these midterms. Shane, you go first. Speaker 7 (3:53) I mean, I just... sit with this poll for a second, which just has so many bad data points, both for Donald Trump and for the Republican Party. We asked a series of questions. Which party do you see as more elitist, more extreme, more corrupt? All are bad for Republicans. And I think the elitist one is a particularly rough one. This is a term that the Republican Party has used to cast the Democrats as outside the mainstream. And the idea that voters see The Republican Party under Donald Trump right now is more elitist. Can you translate that? Why elitist? It's tied into the ballroom potentially. It's tied into the lack of empathy for people's cost concerns. The single worst finding in this poll is cost of living issues. Trump was at, I think, 28 % support on the most important issue for most voters. Like, if you had to pick an issue to be really bad on, don't pick the one people care most about. And so this is the challenge that Trump is facing right now. And he seems disconnected from that reality of how voters are perceiving him. Speaker 8 (4:55) This poll, Maggie, am I right to say, suggests the fundamental appeal of this president over the past many years is faded, is maybe totally faded? Yeah, Speaker 1 (5:09) I don't know that you ever want to say totally with him because obviously he's pretty regenerative and I think we don't always know how everybody is experiencing everything. But there's no question that his actions in office, whether it is the ballroom, whether it is the war, there's no question he is dragging his party down. What's interesting too to me about that cost of living number that Shane was talking about is, number one, it is at least from what I know in my reporting, what Jonathan Swan, our colleague, and I know. is it's reflected in their own polling, in the Trump world's polling. So despite the fact, well, they certainly do, and it's not as if they're not telling the president. He just often hears what he wants to hear, as anybody who has worked for him will tell you. But the other piece that is just striking, he's certainly not the first president to misread his mandate. Joe Biden did that too, and it cost Joe Biden. This is costing Trump right now. The mandate was not, go take us to war, even though you said you wouldn't. and do a lot of legacy projects for yourself in the form of physical structures, and oh, and P.S., make a lot of money for yourself and your family, voters can see it. Speaker 8 (6:09) And yet, I submit to this table, despite the president being a clear albatross on his entire party, just a few days ago, at what was billed a midterm convention, perhaps the very first in history, this is what President Trump said. Speaker 3 (6:28) So on election day, November 3rd, you got to do me a favor. You got to get out and vote, and you're going to pretend I'm on the ballot, because Speaker 4 (6:35) in a way I am on the ballot. Speaker 8 (6:37) He asks Republicans, candidates, voters, to pretend he's on the ballot, intentionally making this midterm all about him. And then he goes even further. Speaker 3 (6:51) Please raise your right hand. I pledge. Speaker 3 (6:57) To the greatest president in the history of the United States that loves us so much he can't even breathe. Speaker 8 (7:12) The president asks this crowd to make a pledge to him, not to the country, not even to the Republican Party, to him. Speaker 3 (7:21) And we are going to vote on November 3rd, or we are going to vote before that. Speaker 8 (7:27) And Maggie, what strikes me is, I think it was our colleague Lisa Lair who once said that when a president is this unpopular, they usually find a way to let members of their own party in Congress. distanced themselves from the president. But here is Trump basically saying, here's a bottle of superglue. I am gluing you all to me. That is the midterm theme. That's genuinely politically counterintuitive. Speaker 1 (7:53) Well, there are some low propensity voters who do only turn out to support Trump historically in the three elections that he was on the ballot. And that is who they are going for. That is who his advisors are hoping they can juice turnout among to offset other losses. And given how Trump has behaved about his party, I don't know how many other choices they have. Now, you can argue that Trump shouldn't have behaved that way about his party in the first place, but this is where they are. Nate, Speaker 8 (8:20) is Maggie right that this might be the Republican Party's best strategy under Trump? Keep making it about a president who's deeply unpopular? They don't have many cards Speaker 5 (8:29) to play. fundamentally, they have to try and keep Republican-leaning voters on board. Speaker 8 (8:35) When Speaker 5 (8:36) the Democrats are up eight and a half points in the generic ballot, that means that the races that are tied are districts and states that voted for Trump by 10. I Speaker 8 (8:44) want to explain that because I think that math gets tricky for people. You're saying there are plenty of places in the country where Trump won the presidency by something like 10 points in 2024. That would, under normal circumstances, make you think that place is completely out of Democrats' reach. You're saying when Democrats... just generically are up something like 9 % that wipes out that otherwise intimidating lead and makes any district, whether it's in the House or maybe even the Senate, somehow competitive. Exactly. So if they want to hold Speaker 5 (9:12) down their losses, it is plausible that in Speaker 8 (9:15) a Speaker 5 (9:15) Trump plus 10 district or state trying to rally the Republican base, either by trying to rejuvenate people's personal loyalties to the president or by casting the Democrats as too far to the left is a relatively reasonable strategy to... hold down those worst-case losses in red states and districts. And that is especially important in the Senate. For the Democrats to take the Senate, they must win at least two states that Trump won by at least 11 points. Which is somewhat conceivable. Which is conceivable, given this national environment and given that in many of these states, the Democrats have strong candidates. But what that means is that if the Republicans can just keep their folks on board, they can hold down the worst-case scenario here. And talking about the president may not be... the worst way to do that, or at the very least, I can imagine it as part of a strategy to do that. Speaker 8 (10:02) Shane,