Midterm Surprise: Democrats Are Surging in Red America

Michael Barbaro (0:01)

From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. A new set of polls from The Times finds that Democratic candidates are doing remarkably well in the red states that they need to win to flip control of the US. Senate in next month's midterm elections. But they're doing less well in the blue states that in theory should be far easier for them to win. Today, my colleague, Chief Political Analyst, Nate Cohn, offers his theory of what's behind the numbers. It's Monday, October 5th.

Nate, welcome back.

Nate Cohn (0:43)

Michael, thank you for having me.

Michael Barbaro (0:44)

And back so soon.

Nate Cohn (0:46)

It's that time of year. You'll forget about me soon.

Michael Barbaro (0:49)

We could never forget about you.

Nate Cohn (0:52)

So kind. You can rest assured I will not forget about you.

Michael Barbaro (0:56)

Okay. Nate, in your last appearance on the show, you explained that to flip control of the United States Senate, which is a genuine possibility in these midterms for Democrats, that they would have to win seats in states, to use your words in that last conversation, that Democrats have no business winning red states.

Or, put differently, Republicans could keep control of the Senate by winning the kinds of seats that they always win in the Trump era. That was basically your analysis.

Nate Cohn (1:34)

That's right. To win the Senate, the Democrats must, even if everything else goes right, win at least two states that Trump won by at least 11 points in the last presidential election.

States that traditionally the Democrats have no business winning in a federal election.

Michael Barbaro (1:50)

Right. That makes it a real uphill battle for Democrats. But you have just gone into each one of these Republican states where these Senate races are happening, and you have polled each one of these races, and you have found that what was once seen as impossible might not be so impossible. Talk about which states you polled and what you found.

Nate Cohn (2:15)

We polled the five red states, where the Democrats seem to have their best chance of winning. Ohio, Texas, Iowa, Alaska, and Kansas. All five of those states voted for Trump by at least 11 points in 2024

We found the Democrats were really highly competitive in all five of them. We found them with meaningful leads in three of the states, Texas, Alaska, and Ohio. We found the race tied in Kansas, and we had the Republicans with a nominal one-point edge in Iowa.

Michael Barbaro (2:47)

Nate, this feels quite meaningful that Democrats have real leads in three solidly Republican red states and are basically tied in the other two.

Nate Cohn (2:57)

It's extraordinary. I mean, to take a historic perspective on this, for the Democrats to even win one of these states would really be exceptional. It has been 16 years since the party has managed to win even one state that leans so much toward the other side in a regularly scheduled Senate election. So to contemplate that the Democrats have a serious chance to not just win two, but perhaps even more.

This is something that we just haven't seen in this era of polarized politics.

Michael Barbaro (3:24)

Right. And this would seem to tell us that Republicans' unpopularity in this moment and in this midterm election is basically turning red states into battleground, states into swing states, almost.

Nate Cohn (3:38)

Yeah, I think that's right. This is an exceptional set of circumstances with a really unpopular Republican president, in some cases, weak Republican candidates, and in all five cases, strong Democratic candidates. And that appears to be enough to give Democrats a real chance to do something that, again, you just don't expect them to be able to pull off in a typical election.

Michael Barbaro (3:58)

So that's the formula here that helps to explain this. An unpopular president and strong, it sounds like, Democratic candidates. Let's just focus for a moment on the first of those. We've talked about President Trump's unpopularity in our last episode with you, and I assume the Republicans' challenges in these red states are mostly tied to the fact that the president is so unpopular. But what exactly did you find?

Nate Cohn (4:26)

Look, it's hard to be surprised when we see bad numbers for the president at this point. It's been the story all cycle, but these numbers are really shockingly bad, I think, for the president. His approval rating across these five states is just 40 percent.

And to step back for a second, these are states where Trump won 56 percent of the vote in the last election. So it just suggested a huge chunk of the typical Republican coalition in these states is outright dissatisfied with the president's handling of almost every issue that we asked about in the poll.