As both parties gear up for the midterm elections, the gap between Americans identifying as Democrats and Republicans has widened by more than 10 percentage points.
Fifty percent of Americans identified as Democrats or Democratic leaners, according to a new Gallup poll. This is 11 points higher than the 39 percent of Americans who identified as Republicans or Republican leaners in the third quarter of 2026.
The 11-point lead is the largest quarterly margin Democrats have recorded since the first quarter of 2009, poll aggregator Interactive Polls wrote on X Monday. At the time, former Democratic President Barack Obama had taken office after winning his first election, flipping nine states.
While the party in power typically loses congressional seats during the midterm elections, new polling shows just how much Democrats are gaining ground in Senate races in five red states just weeks before voters cast their ballots. This means Republicans will have to fight harder to keep seats that would normally be easy to win.
Democrat James Talarico is leading Republican Ken Paxton 51 to 45 percent in Texas, according to New York Times/Siena University polls released Monday.
Democrat Mary Peltola is beating Republican Dan Sullivan 50 to 43 percent in Alaska and Democrat Sherrod Brown is beating Republican Jon Husted in Ohio 49 to 46 percent, according to the polls.
Iowa and Kansas are also seeing tight races. Republican Ashley Hinson is leading Josh Turek 48 to 47 percent in Iowa, and Democrat Adam Hamilton and Roger Marshall are tied at 45 percent in Kansas, the polls show.
The new polling favoring Democrats is a significant shift in public sentiment from when President Donald Trump won the 2024 election.
After he defeated then-Vice President Kamala Harris, Trump boasted about the “unprecedented and powerful” mandate the American people gave him as the Democratic Party was left to figure out what went wrong.
Trump had polled higher than Harris on major issues such as immigration and the economy.
But nearly two years into his second term as president, Trump faces a record-low approval rating amid a costly and unpopular war in Iran and scrutiny over how aggressive federal agents have been in carrying out his massive deportation of illegal immigrants.
The president has gone as far as to offer Americans a $5,000 “Trump Dividend” if voters help Republicans keep control of Congress, which he first announced during an usual two-day convention in Dallas that he headlined to drum up support for GOP candidates. Critics have accused Trump’s promise of $5,000 checks of amounting to bribery.
On Sunday, Trump wrote on Truth Social, “The Polls have ALWAYS underestimated MAGA.”
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