A midterm nightmare looms for President Donald Trump and his party, according to a new poll.
Bleak polling for Trump and the GOP is piling up, and with just 96 days until Americans head to the voting booths, yet another survey suggests it could be ugly—unless you’re a Democrat. In fact, voters are angling for a total makeover of Congress, according to the CNN poll, conducted by SSRS.
The findings suggest that Democrats have an 8-point lead over the Republican Party in the generic ballot among registered voters. Among those who are “extremely motivated to vote,” it is the ugliest result for the GOP. The Dems hold a 20-point advantage in that regard.
Despite the Democratic Party being criticized for failing to effectively nail Trump on all of his shortcomings, 38 percent of Americans prefer a Dem majority in Congress. That’s compared to 33 percent who said that this would have a negative effect, and 29 percent who said it would be the same old story.
However, Democrats do not escape scrutiny. In fact, dismay with Congress is apparently so rampant that most voters said that the country would be better off if most current representatives were unseated on November 3.
That’s more than double the share who felt that way before the Democratic wave election in 2006. That wave, of course, came three-and-a-half years into George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Democrats won control of both the House and the Senate.
A Pew poll at the time described the Iraq war as “the central issue of the midterm elections,” much like Trump’s conflict in Iran could prove to be.
The Iraq war, a major reason George W. Bush’s presidency unraveled, was costly economically, as well as in terms of deaths.
Trump’s war is guzzling money, too. But 63 percent of Americans say that the Republican Party doesn’t show enough interest in economic matters, focusing too little on cost-of-living issues.
Last spring, the GOP had a 7-point lead when voters were quizzed on which is the “party of change.” Now, just a year later, Democrats have taken that crown, enjoying a 10-point advantage.
Trump is getting the blame. Earlier this year, pollsters found that 67 percent of those surveyed said he had a positive effect on the party. An 11-point dip puts Trump at just 56 percent now.
Still, only a third or so of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents think the party needs major change. Just 17 percent of the MAGA faithful think an overhaul is needed, while 46 percent of the non-MAGA wing of the party think it’s time for change.
This isn’t the only poll that spells danger for Trump et al. The latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, conducted between July 24-26 among 1,246 U.S. adults, shows that just 33 percent of Americans approve of the war, while 62 percent disapprove.
That is down from 37 percent in mid-March.
The latest CBS poll showed that Americans are becoming increasingly frustrated by the conflict, and fear it could go on for months, or even years, to come, despite Trump’s repeated assurances that the war is won or almost won.
The conflict has driven up fuel costs. The national average price of gasoline has climbed to just over $4 a gallon, up from around $3 before the war began.
The White House has insisted that the price rises are temporary, but Republican strategists have warned for months that price rises will seriously hurt Trump and his party in November’s midterms.
“This puts pressure on the party in a myriad of ways, all of them bad,” Alex Conant, a Republican political strategist, told Reuters.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle responded with an often-used statement when approached for comment. “No other President in history has accomplished more for the American people than President Trump, who is working tirelessly to create jobs, cool inflation, increase housing affordability, and more,” it said, in part.
