'Striking' new stats said to reveal Republican enthusiasm catastrophe: 'Doesn't look good'
The Republican Party's electoral prospects in the midterms have dimmed as President Donald Trump's polling has slid into oblivion. But those prospects were arguably long to begin with, Aaron Blake wrote in an analysis for CNN published on Thursday.
"Republicans would have turnout challenges in the 2026 midterm elections regardless of how President Donald Trump was doing. After all, his base has proven they largely only come out in droves when his name is on the ballot," wrote Blake — indeed, even in 2022, when Republicans were favored in polls, they ended up underperforming in part for that reason. "So what happens when we add in Trump’s historic unpopularity and a series of moves that have alienated even many of his own supporters?"
The emerging picture, wrote Blake, "doesn’t look good for the GOP."
Furthermore, he said, little details keep jumping out of polls that present further red flags for Trump's party.
"A Washington Post-ABC News poll this week, for instance, showed 73% of Democrats said the upcoming election is more important than past midterms. But just 52% of Republicans said the same. That’s well shy of the 72% of GOP voters who said the same in September 2022, as well as the 63% who said the same in October 2018, just ahead of the last midterm when Trump was in office," he said. "Similarly, the most recent CNN poll from late March showed just 48% of Republicans agreed that their vote would be cast to 'send a message that you support Donald Trump.' That was far less than the 76% of Democrats who said their vote would be cast to send a message of opposition to Trump."
Indeed, he said, "It’s also a smidge below the 51% of Democrats who said their 2022 midterm vote was meant to show support for then-President Joe Biden in October of that year. That’s particularly striking because Biden has never commanded anything close to the level of loyalty and devotion in the Democratic Party that Trump has in the GOP. And yet, their numbers are similar."
Ultimately, Blake concluded, "plenty will happen in the six months between now and when voters render their judgments. But right now, the GOP’s non-presidential-election turnout problem is looking even more problematic than usual."