CNN’s resident numbers guru has tolled the bells for President Donald Trump and his party ahead of the first major elections since his sweeping victory last October.
Before Americans head to the polls Tuesday for a nationwide slate of gubernatorial, legislative and local races, data guru Harry Enten says that with Trump now underwater across the country, the president will want to pay close attention to what those results signal ahead of next year’s midterms.
“Donald Trump is a huge, huge drag in all these races,” Enten said, noting the president is polling at -11 in New Jersey and -14 in Virginia, which will both see gubernatorial votes cast Tuesday, and at -35 in New York, where Trump’s hometown of NYC elects its new mayor on the same day.
“These races, in my mind, could be huge bellwethers going into next year to understanding how Donald Trump is impacting these races. He is a huge, huge drag across the board. New Jersey, Virginia, and New York City,” Enten added.
The White House is already reeling from a new poll, released by NBC over the weekend, that found Democrats currently have an eight point advantage over Republicans ahead of next year’s midterms—the largest lead held by either party in a Congressional battle since 2018.
Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair sought to shrug those numbers off on Sunday, arguing that “by historical standards, midterm outlook is fine [right now] for GOP.”
It appears Enten, for one, couldn’t agree less. “And why is it that these races are so important?” he said of the upcoming polls. “Well, go back through history... look at what has happened. When Democrats sweep New York City, New Jersey and Virginia governor, they won the U.S. House the next year, five out of five times in the last 90 years. You go all the way back to the FDR administration.”
“And when we’re in this national polarized environment and Donald Trump is as unpopular as he is, I think that history is likely to hold,” he went on. “If, in fact, Democrats do sweep tomorrow, which at this point looks more likely than not.”
