CNN Data Guru: Dems Not Where They Need to Be to Have Blue Wave in 2026
“Quinnipiac has been polling this question for the better part of the 21st century. They have never found Democrats, at least those in Congress, in worse shape than they are right now.”
Stemming in part from off-year election victories in 2025 that included flips in non-congressional races, the general consensus from the corporate media, the leftist commentariat, and even some on the right seems to be that Republicans are in for a drubbing in the 2026 midterms.
But according to CNN senior data analyst Harry Enten, Democrats are not where they need to be at this stage in the game in terms of approval ratings and generic ballot numbers to have a blue wave next year.
Their net approval ratings were, as Enten described it, “lower than the Dead Sea,” with the voters they rely on the most – Democrat voters and indie voters – being extremely displeased:
“Democrats, in the minds of the American public, are lower than the Dead Sea. What are we talking about here? Well, let’s take a look. The net approval rating for Democrats in Congress … the lowest ever,” Enten said. “Look at this. Overall, they are 55 points underwater. Their approval rating is south of 20%. It’s even worse when you look at independents.”
“Look at this: -61 points. That means that their approval rating is 61 points lower than their disapproval rating,” he continued. “Quinnipiac has been polling this question for the better part of the 21st century. They have never found Democrats, at least those in Congress, in worse shape than they are right now.”
The slight bump in numbers Democrats got amid the Schumer Shutdown battle is also gone, Enten also noted, while observing that generic ballot polling number averages show Democrats with only a four-point advantage in comparison to two previous midterm election cycles when a Republican president was in office:
“Historically, that is quite weak,” he said, pointing to past cycles under Republican presidents when Democrats were ahead by around 10 points at a comparable stage.
The data analyst added that a lot of Democrats seem to think they can “spike that ball in the end zone,” but he warned that while the party might be on its way to a congressional majority, midterm success “might be a tougher road to hoe than normally.”
Watch:
Cong Dems now have a -55 net approval, an all-time low & lower than the Dead Sea.
2 causes: Dems gives them a -6 pt net approval(!), & they're at -61 pts with indies!
The effect? Dems lead on the generic ballot is less than half of what it was at this pt in the 06 & 18 cycles. pic.twitter.com/Os17D7BkHR
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) December 18, 2025
On a similar note, a recent generic congressional ballot poll showed a two-point gain for Republicans:
🇺🇸 NATIONAL POLL By Emerson (A)
Pres. Trump
Approve: 41% [=]
Disapprove: 50% [+1]
——
Generic Ballot
🟦 Democrats: 44% [=]
🟥 Republicans: 42% [+2]
——
Net Favs
🟢 Shapiro: +6
🟢 Vance: +5
🟤 Newsom: -11
🟤 AOC: -12
🟤 Mamdani: -16
🟤 MTG: -36
——
1,000 RV | 12/14-15 | MoE: ±3% pic.twitter.com/IlgM8yhC7v— InteractivePolls (@IAPolls2022) December 18, 2025
Relatedly, a review of the congressional districts up for grabs next year shows Democrats are limited on the amount of damage they conceivably can do:
Democrats don’t need to win as many seats this time around [compared to 2018], netting just three seats rather than two dozen to claim a majority. But the hill to reach a comfortable majority like the 235 seats they held after the last blue wave has grown much steeper, driven by multiple rounds of gerrymandering — including ongoing redistricting in several states that threatens to erode the battlefield even further.
The result is that Democrats could post a bigger national swing than in 2018 and still end up with a slimmer majority than they had after that year. To flip 40 seats again would require them to win not just the kinds of highly competitive seats that fueled their House takeover last time but every district that Trump won by 12 points or less, a task that would not only defy political gravity but upend it.
While Republicans are contending with what some political observers have called, in so many words, the “Trump is not on the ballot” problem, Democrats are contending with a big problem of their own: the fact that Democrats and their deeply unpopular brand are on the ballot.
– Stacey Matthews has also written under the pseudonym “Sister Toldjah” and can be reached via X. –
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Comments
Where will the data go as Democrats move steadily to ruin America’s 250th birthday?
The Democrats don’t need to flip 40 seats. They only need to flip 2 or 3 net. You can’t predict anything at this point because
— The election is 11 months away. Lots of potential (and somewhat likely) events could upend the contests. We could have a great financial crash, another lab-engineered pandemic, a major change in the Russia-Ukraine war, etc…
— General national polls don’t directly map onto individual seats. A few anomalous races driven by local factors, state contests, or ballot referenda could tip the balance
— The House could easily flip to the Democrats before the Midterm Election if a few GOP vacancies occur. If this happens, a Democrat House would be running for reelection, which might not be to their benefit.
Polls at this point are worse than worthless. They’re mathematical masturbation.
They will pick up seats in states where conservatives are fleeing.
This is the ground game in blue state hell holes.
I don’t think that harping on Healthcare issues is the win that’s the Communists think it is. They have sole ownership of that system and every single one of its failures was because of decisions that they made.
California is dying as gas refineries and gas stations shut down due to state regs. The price of gas will go to at least $8 per gal. CA refineries supply NV and AZ. More middle class will leave California. CA, NV, and AZ will feel the affects of the CA State Dems on the oil industry and what it has done to them. It will send prices in all three states high by the next election and will be clear that the California Dems have caused it.
At this point who exactly is going to be voting Democrat?
They aren’t offering anything at all positive for the country. Heck, the can’t even tell you who is and isn’t a woman.
The kind of person who would be voting Democrat really shouldn’t be allowed out without a supervising adult in charge!
“At this point who exactly is going to be voting Democrat?”
You’re making my point 😂😂
Sure, but the crushing horror is how many there will be.
the youth of america is finally rising up against the woke left army
they will be called racist etc but the murder of charlie kirk and the uprising of blmplo is the turning point
The biggest problem is the GOP Congress has done nothing to earn a single vote. The Democrats will pick up seats even with 18% approval ratings because the GOP has done nothing.
Nah, he’s right.
I suspect a lot of gun owners are going to sit on their hands this coming election.
I follow the numbers closely, and at least when it comes to presidential elections I have a good track record. How about this one: I won opposing bets in 2016, one for Trump to be elected president and the other for Hillary to win the popular vote but by less than 4%.
Last year, I called the popular vote margin close enough for horseshoes by adjusting the Real Clear Politics polling average to reflect its underestimates of Trump’s numbers in ’16 and ’20. And in July, I called it for Trump (but not the margin — see below) when the June unemployment numbers were released in early July.
So that’s my credibility statement. Now let’s look at the RCP numbers right now. First, Trump’s approval rating.
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/approval/donald-trump/approval-rating
Wow, he’s 9.8% underwater. Looks bad, huh? Not so fast. My adjustment is to eliminate any result wider than 10 points. The main reason is that the outliers have terrible track records, and are biased against the Rs, which weirdly enough includes Fox. Do that, and Trump is -5.4%. Even that’s an overstatement, because Emerson and Quantus are garbage.
Now look at the generic vote. Shows the Rs -2.7%. That’s probably closer to reality, but as the CNN guy says, -2.7% is weak tea. (Enten is possibly the only one on CNN who’s not full of shit.)
https://www.realclearpolling.com/polls/state-of-the-union/generic-congressional-vote
Moving along, I found something really interesting.
https://www.captaink.us/p/captain-ks-final-national-voter-registration
The source is a rabid wingnut, but he’s not cherrypicking. He looks at the numbers and doesn’t make that shit up. I don’t know whether it’ll be relevant to the House mid-terms, but it will matter for the Senate and the ’28 presidential. The Dems are in bad shape; the Republicans are making steady gains almost everywhere.
Finally, something important for ’28, and maybe the mid-terms, although I don’t have data to back me up for mid-terms so I’m qualifying it. Go back all the way to 1948 and look at the trend in unemployment in the spring (second quarter) of a presidential election year.
https://data.bls.gov/timeseries/LNS14000000?years_option=all_years
The rule: If the headline “U-3” unemployment rate rises between March and June, the incumbent party’s presidential candidate will lose the popular vote. If it declines, the incumbent party’s candidate will win the popular vote.
The only time it didn’t work was 1956, when U-3 rose by a smidgen but Eisenhower was re-elected anyway. The reason: The direction in the spring is usually part of a larger trend, and you look at the spring because that’s when voters make the pocketbook calculation. In 1956, there was no trend, and the general state of the economy was very strong.
In ’24, U-3 rose by 0.2% between March and June. Unemployment had been rising since the prior fall, and topped at 4.2% before the election. When June’s number came out, I called November for Trump. The U-3 direction says nothing about the margin, but only the winner of the popular vote.
BOTTOM LINE
Presidential elections are first and foremost pocketbook affairs. I haven’t tried to analyze mid-terms, partly because you have 468 or 469 separate elections. Too many moving parts. So all I can really do is state a gut feel, which is that Republican control of the House will be a pocketbook deal, but my confidence level is not high.
👍 I haven’t the foggiest whether I agree with anything you said, but clearly you put in the work.
The 2026 election was always going to be about how the economy is doing come fall of 2026. That was true a year ago, and it is true today. Trump may not be on the ballot in 2026, but I’ll posit that he fired the 2026 election starting gun the other night with his 20 minute 1 year synopsis and talk about the economy. Trump will not be on the ballot, but that doesn’t mean that he won’t be heavily involved.
Real Clear Politics have Dems up 16pts in Generic balloting in `2026 which is strange because the Republican party is up 5 points in approval ratings.
RCP is a poll aggregator. One of the polls shows D+16, but that’s very much an outlier.
Generic ballots always favor the democrats. Thats why the propaganda machine loves them.