President Donald Trump’s Republican Party should be performing worse than it currently is against their Democratic counterparts, according to an anti-Trump conservative. The economy continues to suffer under Trump, and because voters are noticing, Trump is sending signals that he plans on rigging the midterms.
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So why aren’t Democrats doing better? The Dispatch staff writer Nick Catoggio shared some of his views on Monday.
“On May 31 the RealClearPolitics tracker had Democrats ahead of Republicans by 7.6 points, teeing up the sort of midterm drubbing for incumbent presidents to which Americans have grown accustomed over the last 40 years,” Catoggio wrote. “But a funny thing happened on the way to the blue wave: That lead has now shrunk to 4.7 points and the GOP is now polling at its highest level (43.9 percent) this year.”
He added, “Nate Silver’s generic ballot tracker has seen less of a shift, but there’s movement there too. On May 31, Democrats led by 7.1 points; today they lead by 5.9. That’s meaningfully less than the 7.6-point advantage they held at this point in 2018, when they went on to sweep House races.”
Catoggio speculated that part of the reason Democrats are struggling is because their brand is now associated with “socialism,” which has long been deemed taboo in American politics.
“He and his movement desperately need a foil,” Catoggio wrote. “And now, thanks to the [Democratic Socialists of America], they have one. I’m not sold on the theory that the new red scare explains the tightening generic ballot, though. At least, not all of it.”
Yet the conservative added that he is not convinced the Democrats’ rising socialism is in itself an adequate explanation.
“Even if we concede that socialism is an albatross for the party, it’s likely less of one than Trump is for Republicans,” Catoggio wrote. “A new CNBC poll asked Americans whether finding out that a candidate belongs to a particular political movement would make them more or less likely to vote for him or her. Discovering that someone is a democratic socialist led to a 32-50 split; discovering that someone is MAGA triggered a 27-57 divide by comparison.”
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He added that voters may also fluctuate in their views toward Republicans because of the rising cost of gasoline.
“The cost of gasoline began rising after the U.S. attacked Iran on February 28 and continued to climb until around April 7, when the two sides agreed to a ceasefire,” Catoggio argued. “Prices then began to inch downward on hopes that pre-war levels of oil-tanker traffic might resume in the Strait of Hormuz—only to climb higher again in May, to a peak of more than $4.50 per gallon, when Iran refused to relinquish control of the strait.”
He added, “Coincidentally, May was also when Republicans’ generic-ballot polling cratered.” Catoggio later pointed out that when gas prices fell below $4 again in mid-June, “coincidentally, this was the period when Republicans’ generic-ballot polling recovered.”
In a similar vein, Catoggio argued that fluctuating feelings about the Iran war could explain the closer-than-expected generic ballot numbers of the midterm elections.
“Most of the recent generic ballot polling showing a GOP surge has been of registered voters, as is common at this stage of an election cycle,” Catoggio said. “But not every registered voter ultimately turns out, of course; for a clearer forecast of Election Day, you need to focus on likely voters. And Democrats have a big advantage among likely voters right now.”
He added, “The same Washington Post poll released this weekend that found them ahead by 3 points among registered voters saw the lead balloon to 8 among voters who say they’re ‘absolutely certain to vote.’ The share of Democrats who say they’re certain to vote this year exceeds the share of Republicans who say so by a wider margin than the share who said so in the ‘blue wave’ year of 2018, in fact. And Democrats are considerably more likely to say that it’s ‘more important’ to vote in 2026 vis-à-vis previous midterms than Republicans are.”
Catoggio concluded, “The red scare might be scary enough to alter voters’ preferences yet not scary enough to get them off the couch on Election Day, especially with bad news about the war and the economy drowning it out. But, barring a terrorist attack on the country or something similarly terrible, it’s the best bogeyman Trump’s got.”
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