New Poll 'Screams Democrats Have Their Work Cut Out For Them' In Midterms & 2028

Forbes Breaking News

On "Forbes Newsroom," Matt Taglia, Senior Director of Emerson College Polling, discussed a new Emerson poll on President Trump's approval, the 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election.

Transcript

00:00Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes.

00:07Joining me now is Matt Taglia, Senior Director of Emerson College Polling.

00:11Matt, thanks so much for coming on.

00:13Thanks for having me, Brittany.

00:15Emerson released their wide-ranging national poll for July,

00:19and there's a lot of interesting data points in here,

00:22a lot of numbers for both parties that I do want to dive into.

00:25But first, let's start the conversation with the leader of the Republican Party,

00:29President Donald Trump. What does his approval rating look like now?

00:34So right now, we see that his approval hasn't changed much since we last took a poll of his

00:40approval rating in June. Right now, it's at 46% approved, 47% disapproved. So that is just a

00:47minus one. He is slightly underwater there. I think we see that the folks who like Trump are

00:55sticking with Trump, and the folks who dislike Trump are going to continue to dislike Trump.

00:59And disapprove of his presidency.

01:03That's really interesting. Let's talk about those demos just a little bit. Where is he

01:07seeing his strongest support? And where is he seeing his biggest disapproval?

01:11Yeah, so he continues to see his strongest support, obviously among Republicans, but

01:18it's strongest among men, 53% approve, white voters, 52%, and then folks who are over the age of 70,

01:2753%. So, you know, those are certainly some of the core demographics that I think we tend to think

01:33of when we talk about MAGA or Trump generally. And that's definitely shown here.

01:41And it hasn't really had much movement, this approval rating, in the past couple of months.

01:46So what does that trajectory or really lack thereof indicate to you, if anything?

01:50You know, it's interesting. We have seen a trend of rising disapproval, 47% right now. But, you know,

02:02otherwise, we see widespread disapproval of his policies. We can talk about that in a minute.

02:09But for the man himself, he still is remaining with his head just above water, so to speak.

02:18You know, it's a really interesting trend. I don't know whether that disapproval number will go up.

02:23I think it might have settled here at 47%. And frankly, I'd be surprised to see it move significantly.

02:30It's really interesting that people are able to separate the politician from the policies.

02:35And I do want to talk about some of those policies right now. Which ones do voters think he's doing

02:41a good job at? And where do they think that he could have some room for improvement? Where do

02:45they think he could do better when it comes to his policies? Yeah. And I think if we take a step back

02:51and we look at all of these policies in total, none of them have overall approval. So right now,

02:58his highest is immigration with 45% approved, 46% disapproved. Everything else is underwater.

03:05His highest disapproval is on the economy. So 51% disapproved, 41% approved. His net approval is

03:14worse with tariff policy, 50% disapproved, 36% approved. This is where Republicans actually start

03:23to step away and step back from President Trump. He has 69% approval on tariff policy among Republicans

03:32versus 81% for immigration. Deportations. This is interesting. 48% disapproved, 43% approved. There's

03:43clearly a disconnect with immigration there. There's a lot going on here. But I think the overall

03:48broad picture is that Trump himself is popular, but his policies are unpopular with the electorate.

03:55And that's a really interesting trend. And ever since you and I have started talking over a year

04:00ago in the lead up to the 2024 election, the top issue for voters was the economy. What are the top

04:07issues now and how have they changed in the past six months since President Trump took office a second

04:12time? And so, Brittany, the economy continues to be the top issue for voters, 31%. That's followed by

04:22threats to democracy at 23%. So that's where we've really seen a shift over the past, say, six months,

04:30even a year. We saw just before the election that that threats to democracy number was rising a bit.

04:36And it has risen further since then, up now to the second spot in the top issues list. And, you know,

04:42this is largely driven by Democrats. We do see that it's the second place issue for independence,

04:48but it is the top issue for Democrats right now. I think if your big takeaway here from this poll

04:55is that people still approve of President Trump and that even though they disapprove of his policies,

05:00I'm curious what their take is on the one big, beautiful bill. And that is legislation that

05:06President Trump signed into law on July 4th, and it contains his sweeping signature tax and

05:11immigration policies. What do voters think about that package?

05:14Yeah. And we asked specifically, you know, what folks think the one big, beautiful bill act,

05:21what sort of impact it will have on their daily lives? And 39% say that it will have a negative

05:27impact. 33% say positive and then 9% say none. You know, there's a major information gap here. If we

05:34look at age, people who are under the age of 50 don't really know that much about the act itself.

05:40But when you look at older voters, those who are over the age of 50, generally speaking,

05:46they're split. So they're in that 44, 40% range of saying, it'll make my life better versus it'll

05:53make my life worse. So I think it sort of remains to be seen, you know, exactly how some of these

06:00policies are implemented. And it's going to take a little bit of time for folks to really see those

06:06implications and see it affect their daily life. I do now want to make a complete left turn here

06:12and talk about someone who's been dominating the headlines over the past couple of weeks. And

06:16that's Jeffrey Epstein. His relationship with President Donald Trump is under renewed scrutiny

06:21and a memo released by the DOJ in early July, which said there is no client list.

06:26Epstein did die by suicide and the DOJ won't release additional documents pertaining to the Epstein

06:32files was really met with harsh criticism. How do people think that the White House and the Trump

06:38administration at large has handled the Jeffrey Epstein story and case?

06:44Yeah, Brittany, and this is where some of that bad news on the policy side only gets worse. So when we

06:51ask folks whether they approve or disapprove of how the administration has handled the Jeffrey Epstein

06:57case, 51 percent, a majority disapprove, only 16 percent approve. If we look a little bit further

07:05down in those numbers, only 32 percent of Republicans explicitly approve of how Donald Trump has handled

07:12the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and the files. 56 percent of independents disapprove, obviously an

07:18overwhelming majority of Democrats also disapprove. But there are very few gaps here. I think that that's

07:26really that's the point I want to drive home. Nearly everyone disapproves of how the administration has

07:32handled this. Again, this is really, really bad news, I think, for the administration, especially,

07:39even if Donald Trump himself is still above water. You know, some of these other folks in the

07:45administration could really catch some heat over this in the months to come.

07:49And now I do want to look into the future, because if you're saying Americans aren't

07:55approving of President Trump's policies, I wonder what that really means for Republicans in the

08:00midterms. As we sit here right now, and yes, we still do have a year and a half until the midterms

08:05in 2026. Who's in a better position right now, Democrats or Republicans?

08:12So right now, Democrats are in the better position. They're at 44 percent in this poll versus 42 percent

08:18for Republicans. But that is that is a very, very tight margin there. So, you know, I if I were a

08:25Democrat running for Congress, I would really like to see that number higher. I'd like to see that spread

08:30somewhere around the six percent range. So that's certainly, you know, Republicans winning up and down

08:37the ballot. That is not off the table here. If we look at independents specifically, who, you know, some of

08:43these folks are running for Congress will really be after their votes. They are backing Democrats by a

08:4938 to 32 percent margin. So that is some good news for Democrats here. But otherwise, if I'm a Democrat

08:56looking at this, I would be a little bit worried. And I think if you're a Democrat looking at the

09:022028 poll that you have, you would be a little worried because back in June, one of the big takeaways

09:08was that Vice President J.D. Vance was far and away the front runner for the GOP presidential

09:13nominee. So then this month you stacked him up against a few different Democrats. What did you

09:20find? How did he fare? Yeah. And, Brittany, with this one, I want to toss out the usual caveats that

09:28it's very early. There are several years to go here. But we decided to test some of the top Democrats

09:35versus J.D. Vance, J.D. Vance being, as you said, the heir apparent to the presidential nomination.

09:43Of course, that could change in the future. But in a ballot test between Pete Buttigieg and J.D. Vance,

09:52we find Vance at 44, Buttigieg at 43. Buttigieg here performs the best out of the three candidates

09:58that we test. He's the only candidate here to win independent voters, albeit very narrowly,

10:05by about two points. When we tested Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, she's at 41% versus 44% for Vance.

10:14And then Newsom does a little bit better with 42% versus 45% for Vance. So I think the overall

10:22picture here is that some of these Democrats have their work cut out for them if they hope

10:28to win the nomination, A, and B, take on J.D. Vance or the eventual Republican nominee.

10:36And I'm curious about two types of voters, perhaps the undecided block and the independents.

10:42So let's talk about the undecideds first. How big of a block is that? And is there any indication

10:47of which way they're leaning? That is a significant block. I believe it's, you know,

10:55between 15 to 20% in all of these tests. You know, there's not really an indication here of

11:03which way they would be leaning. But as we usually see, these are going to be some younger voters and

11:09some just lower propensity voters overall. That is partially what drove Donald Trump's victory in

11:162024. He was able to activate some of these lower propensity voters in some of the swing states,

11:22whereas Harris was just unable to do that with some of the lower propensity voters that she relied on.

11:28So, you know, that is a rule that will continue. These candidates will be fighting to turn out

11:37those voters. And frankly, I do think that this is where J.D. Vance could have a little bit more

11:41trouble because he simply is not as popular in the Republican Party among these Republican voters

11:48who drove Donald Trump back to the White House in 2024. And then when you're looking at independence,

11:55I know if you're a Democrat, you might be worried right now when you're looking at this polling for

12:002026 or 2028. Is there any indication of which way they would break?

12:05Yeah. So when we look at 2026, we find them breaking for the Democrat 30 38 percent versus 32 percent for

12:14the Republican. So, again, I think that that is some positive news here for Democrats. When we look

12:20at the 2028 ballot, again, Buttigieg is the only candidate, Democratic candidate who is able to win

12:29independence. Again, that was very narrowly by about two points for all of these other candidates.

12:34The Republican wins, but it's not by some huge margin. So these folks are still very much on the

12:42table, up for grabs. Either party could win them. We saw how some of them voted in 2024,

12:50again, helping usher Donald Trump into victory. But that may not hold for 2028.

12:56And I know I want to add the caveat to here that it's way too early between 2026 and 2028.

13:03But when you're looking at these numbers, and as we sit here right now in 2025, the summer of 2025,

13:09seems that J.D. Vance is far and away the heir apparent for the GOP. It seems like Democrats,

13:15like you said, have their work cut out for them. There is no leader that is emerging as the number

13:21one leader of the Democratic Party. Does this polling right now indicate to you anything about

13:27the future of either party?

13:31Yeah, I think, again, this poll screams Democrats have their work cut out for them heading into 26

13:38and 2028. I think especially 2028, because they, as you said, they are missing that sort of heir

13:44apparent to the nomination. I think that there are certainly some candidates that have very positive

13:53name identification and favorability numbers, as we've tested in previous months. But there's not

13:59one. And I do think that that will happen. There will be one candidate who rises above the rest. Obviously,

14:06that's going to happen between the caucuses and primaries. But I think in the course of that,

14:12we will see that one, two, maybe three candidates will really rise to the top. And they will strike

14:19a nerve among Democratic voters and voters at large. Well, Matt, per usual, I always appreciate

14:26our conversations and your insights and your polls. Thank you so much for joining me until next time.

14:33Thanks so much, Brittany.

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