Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
An Ipsos/WP poll shows Democrats with only a slight lead in the congressional generic ballot. But other polls and the fundamentals of the election suggest a blowout.
Sarah Jones & Jason Easley at The Daily:
The Republicans were hoping that the Iran war would end, inflation and prices would drop, and voters would put the pitchforks and torches down and go back to being just angry.
Those hopes have been shattered as the Iran peace process fell apart. The war is back on. Oil is at $100 a barrel. Trump has resumed his tariff obsession, and things went back to being the darkest timeline for Republicans.
The new Emerson College Poll was the stuff of Democratic dreams and Republican nightmares.
According to the Emerson Poll:
A new Emerson College Polling survey of likely 2026 voters finds the Democrats with an 11-point advantage over the Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, leading 53% to 42%. President Trump holds a 39% job approval rating, consistent with the past two months, whereas his disapproval increased another point, to 57%.
“Driving the Democrats’ significant lead on the ballot are women voters, who break for the Democratic candidate by a 27-point margin, 56% to 39%, while men are more split: 49% support the Democrat and 44%