Opinion: Schoen and Cooperman Say a Blue Wave Is Building and Republicans Are Running Out of Time
The pollsters point to an 8-point Democratic lead on the generic ballot and competitive Senate races in red states, but say a sweep is far from certain and the GOP has cash and Trump's base.
This is a summary of an opinion column. The views belong to its authors, pollsters Douglas Schoen and Carly Cooperman, not to RightNewsRightNow.
Their warning to Republicans is plain: the numbers look like 2018. Democrats lead the generic congressional ballot by 8 points, they write, compared with about 7 at this point in 2018, before Democrats gained 41 House seats. They add that the president's party has lost seats in nearly every midterm since the Roosevelt era, by an average of 31 House seats over the past five.
Senate. They cite polling averages that show Democrat Roy Cooper nearly 10 points ahead of Republican Michael Whatley in North Carolina, Abdul El-Sayed up 3 over Mike Rogers in Michigan, and Troy Jackson with a slight edge over Sen. Susan Collins in Maine. They say James Talarico leads Ken Paxton by roughly 3 points in Texas, and that Iowa, South Carolina, Alaska and Kansas are closer than expected. Democrats need a net gain of four seats for control. Outside North Carolina, they note, the leads are essentially ties.
Why voters are unhappy. Fox polling, as they describe it, found 44% of Americans say they are falling behind financially against 12% getting ahead, and 55% trust Democrats more on inflation versus 40% for Republicans. Trump's approval is below 40%.
What they say still helps the GOP. A big cash advantage that is only now being spent, a Democratic Party they call divided, with "a weak brand" and an approval average near 40%, and the chance that lower-propensity Republicans turn out when Trump urges them to vote as if he were on the ballot. They also caution that the number of competitive House districts has shrunk since 2018 and that polls have underestimated Republicans in several recent elections.
Their bottom line: Democrats are likely to win the House and have a better-than-even chance at the Senate, but "the direction of the race is clear; the scale of the outcome is not."
Note for readers: the polling figures are the authors' summary of averages and Fox polls. We did not check them against the original surveys.