A latest New York Times/Siena University poll shows Democrats leading Republicans because of the continued downfall of convicted felon/sexual predator president Donald J. Trump’s increasingly erratic and criminal behavior.
Writes Shane Goldmacher, Ruth Igielnik and Sophia June in today’s Times:
With fewer than 50 days until the midterms, Democrats have developed a clear advantage over Republicans as the president has lost the public’s trust on the economy, according to a new national poll from The New York Times and Siena University.
President Trump’s lingering unpopularity and intense frustration over his management of cost-of-living issues, in particular, have deepened Republican vulnerabilities as Democrats push to win control of both the House and Senate.
Likely voters favored Democratic candidates over Republicans by close to 9 percentage points in their congressional district — a metric that is closely watched by both parties as a leading indicator of political momentum.
Mr. Trump’s approval rating continued to languish at 38 percent among likely voters, essentially unchanged from the lows it sank to after he went to war with Iran. A majority of voters disapproved of Mr. Trump’s handling of every major issue included in the poll: the economy, immigration, tariffs, the war and, especially, the cost of living.
Privately, more and more Republicans express growing concern about Trump’s mental state, escalating dementia and a hardened focus on personal vanity projects than the real issues of inflation, gas prices and an inability to deal with the unconstitutional war he started with Iran more than six months ago.
Trump’s declining MAGA cult are threatening to stay at home and not vote in the upcoming November midterm elections. If they stay home and Democrats turn out, control of Congress is likely to shift, leaving Trump in danger of an impeachment that can, and will, remove him from office before his second toxic term ends.
Solid Republican states like Texas, North Carolina and others show Democrats leading in polls. Trump’s support of White Supremacists and White Nationalists show the control of racists and bigots in control of what was once considered the “party of Abraham Lincoln.”
In the Times poll, “voters said they trusted Democrats more than Republicans on not just health care and foreign wars but also on the two issues that powered Mr. Trump’s 2024 victory: immigration and the economy.”
The political conditions found by the poll suggest the makings of a potential Democratic wave in November. But that outcome is far from assured. Thanks in part to gerrymandering, relatively few House seats are truly competitive, and in the run-up to the midterms, Republicans drew new House maps in several states favorable to their candidates. And even a nearly 9-point advantage would not guarantee flipping some of the Senate seats Democrats are counting on in 2026 — Texas, Ohio, Alaska, Iowa — which Mr. Trump won by double digits in 2024.
Still, independent voters have especially soured on Mr. Trump. Just 10 percent of them said the economy was better today than a year ago and only 27 percent approve of Mr. Trump’s job performance overall. And in the fight for Congress, 57 percent of independent voters said they planned to vote for a Democrat compared to only 34 percent for a Republican.
The cost of living is dragging down Republicans more than any other issue, as even some Republican voters lose faith in Mr. Trump’s economy. Only 28 percent of voters said they approved of how Mr. Trump has managed matters related to affordability.
Even Mr. Trump’s most loyal and durable demographic base — white voters without college degrees — disapproved of the president’s handling of the cost of living by a wide 21-percentage point margin.
And opposition to Mr. Trump is intensifying. The survey was the first Times/Siena poll in his second term to find a majority of voters, 52 percent, saying that they “strongly” disapproved of him.
The war in Iran, which has driven gas prices above $4 a gallon, is also weighing down the president. More than three-quarters of independent voters said that they disapproved of his handling of the conflict, and so did nearly a quarter of Mr. Trump’s own 2024 voters.
Yet the survey found that the G.O.P.’s vulnerabilities extend beyond Mr. Trump.
Voters see Republicans broadly as more extreme, more elitist and more corrupt than Democrats, according to the poll. And while voters continue to have doubts about both parties, they aligned more with the Democratic Party on both cultural and economic matters than the Republican Party in the survey.
Nervous Republican members of the House and Senate point to Trump’s endorsements of toxic candidates with racist beliefs and his appointments of alcoholics like Pete Hegseth as Defense Secretary and Kash Patel as FBI director.
Hegseth is a member of a White Nationalist religion that preaches that women should “stay in their place” and say “slavery was necessary.” He has demoted or fired admirals and generals of color and removed women from leadership positions.
The New Republic has reported drinking binges by Patel and security concerns that question his fitness for FBI director.
“There Is no method to Trump’s madness,” writes Ross Rosenfeld in The New Republic. “He’s simply insane. His defenders try to apply reason to his erratic, nonsensical decisions. That’s a fool’s errand—but fools abound in this administration.”
America is led today by an insane fool, a mad wannabe fascist dictator. Donald Trump is, simply, this nation’s most dangerous domestic terrorist who threatens our democracy and the world.
The cowardly Republicans in Congress are not stepping up to save our nation. It will be up to the voters n the November midterm elections.
