Ron Brownstein said Democrats are not maximizing Trump disapproval the way they have in the past: <\/p>\n
JAMES CARVILLE: Is there anything that you see in history, in election returns from 2025 and 2026, or in polling, that tells you that the Democrats are not going to have a really big year? RON BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, well, I think the one yellow light on the dashboard for Democrats is what I was talking about before, which is, if you look at Trump’s first term, in the exit poll in 2018, 90% of people who disapproved of Trump voted Democratic for the House. In 2020, it was 93%. Over those two elections in 2018 and 2020, every Democratic Senate candidate, except Sarah Gideon in Maine, won at least 89% of voters who disapproved of Trump. So did Sheryl and Spanberger. They won over 90% of voters who disapproved of Trump. By that history, you know, with all indications that gas prices may not go down as much as they hope, you know, more conflict in the Middle East, Trump’s disapproval rating stays up near 60%. Democrats should have a very big race. The yellow light on the dashboard is that polling so far is not finding Democrats winning as big a share of the Trump disapprovers as they did in his first term. CARVILLE: The Congressional generic he’s talking about. BROWNSTEIN: The Congressional generic, but also, James, all of those New York Times, Siena polls, and all of the Senate races, they were not where they needed to be among the Trump disapprovers. So, you know, particularly because so much of this election is being fought out in red terrain, where there are far fewer Republican House members in districts that voted Democratic than there were in 2018. Obviously, every place except Maine in the Senate are places that Trump won, all of them except North Carolina, places he won by double digits. The one yellow light for Democrats is whether there is going to be more than we’ve seen in the past, a bigger share of voters than we’ve seen in the past say, I don’t like Trump, but I’m not willing to go to the alternative. That we have not seen much of that historically, as you know, well, I mean, I think midterms are overwhelmingly a referendum on the incumbent president. And I think a lot of the people who disapprove of Trump and dislike the Democrats may not vote in the end, and that will give Democrats a boost, but that is the one yellow light. They are not maximizing that Trump disapproval the way they have in the past. And that could be a reflection either of the generic and these races are lagging and they’re eventually going to get there, or the Biden presidency happened in the middle, right? Between 18 and 20 and now there was the Biden presidency and the Democratic image did take a hit and there may be more voters than there were in Trump’s first term who dislike him, but are still not willing to vote for Democrats, especially in places like Ohio and Iowa and Alaska and Texas, where the Senate is going to be decided. CARVILLE: To me, the most important number in polling, and I’m not a big, and I think we all would agree, the congressional generic is not a be-all to end-all number, okay? But I think the most important number in that or in other polls is the incumbent’s number. It’s not margin. Yeah. It’s incumbent. It’s the number of the incumbent party. And with reference to the Times-Shannon poll, I would just make the editorial comment, and you talk to a lot of people, you see a lot of that seems to me a little bit on the more optimistic side for Republicans. I mean, all polls are plus or minus three in some of them, but that’s my general observation about it. I wouldn’t say it’s wrong. BROWNSTEIN: Well, I would say, look, I mean, look, you’ve got in those polls, Trump, well under 50% approval in Iowa, Ohio, and Texas, and only even I think 47, 47 in Alaska. By historic standards, a Republican should not be able to win a state where Trump’s approval is 42%. We don’t have an example of that in his first term. There’s no state where Republican Senate candidate won where Trump, like I said, Susan Collins in his first term was the only Republican Senate candidate incumbent or challenger who won in a state where he was net negative at all, much less, you know, 42, 55. I mean, there’s no precedent for that. Now, you know, Democrats did do better. They did win four states in 24 and fourth minute races in states where Harris lost fairly narrowly, but there is no precedent for what those time Siena polls showed. So, you know, I say that’s the yellow light on the dashboard for Democrats. I also believe it’s the yellow light on the dashboard for Republicans because it’s like, you know, is your relative, I wouldn’t say optimism, but lack of panic about 26 built on a mirage that you can win many more voters who disapprove of Trump than you have in the past. That’s the only reason they’re in the ballgame right now in these Senate polls and in these generic polls. So is that really a mirage that that’s a July thing that’s going to melt away when, you know, some Democrats have said to me that, you know, that this is just a function of the candidates not being that well known yet. And, you know, maybe it is. But like I said, Trump being, I think it was a 42 approval in both Iowa and Ohio. I mean, those are states where he won 55 percent of the vote. I mean, those are those are amazing and ominous numbers for Republicans. And, you know, the fact that The New York Times still had them ahead in those Senate races is a real departure from what we saw in the first term. All right, Albert.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n