Polling guru Nate Silver has laid out a case for a Republican electoral disaster at next week’s midterms.
Silver argues that soaring fuel prices, Donald Trump’s sinking approval ratings, and the president’s deeply unpopular war on Iran could create a political environment far worse for the GOP than many analysts are willing to contemplate.
It comes as a number of congressional districts and states that Trump carried by double-digit margins in 2024 have become competitive, leaving Republican candidates facing tougher contests than they might have expected on Nov. 3.
Those battlegrounds, among others, include Texas, Alaska, Kansas and Ohio, where Democrats are leading by just a few points, but which could nonetheless help determine whether Republicans retain their grip on Congress.
Analysts expect the GOP to lose the House, but say what happens with the Senate is less certain.
Silver’s forecasting model gives Democrats roughly a 75 percent chance of taking control of the Senate, leaving Republicans with just a 25 percent chance of holding on. But the polling analyst says the possibility of a sweeping Democratic victory deserves far more attention.
Speaking on the Still Counting podcast, Silver said observers had focused on the risk that Democrats’ apparent advantages in Republican-leaning states might evaporate, leaving them narrowly short of a Senate majority.
“That’s very possible,” he said, suggesting that scenario accounted for much of the Republicans’ remaining 25 percent chance.
But Silver argued that analysts were reluctant to take the opposite possibility seriously: that Democrats could win by a landslide.
“People are too afraid to, like, take this upside case seriously,” he said.
Silver then explained why he thinks that scenario could occur.
“Gas costs $4.30 a gallon. Trump has a 37 percent approval rating. Trump lost by 8-1/2 points in the U.S. House midterm in 2018. Trump is 80 years old, he said.
“I’m saying Trump a lot because he’s the most important factor in the election. Trump is at war with Iran. Trump is out there campaigning and talking about men’s butts when Republicans don’t want to talk about him,” he added, referring to Trump’s apparent obsession with Ohio Sen. Jon Husted’s rear end.
Silver added that early-voting figures also offered a possible warning sign for Republicans.
Early voting has so far shown unusually strong participation among Black, Hispanic and unaffiliated voters in several states, prompting University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald to suggest turnout could approach 2018’s “blue wave,” when Democrats won control of the House, Axios reported.
“If it happens, there’ll be plenty of evidence that this is a really, really bad environment for Republicans and Trump,” Silver said.
The warning comes as Trump and his party have lost ground since the president launched his war on Iran in February.
The war has caused fuel prices to spike. AAA figures show the average price of gas in the U.S. at $4.23 a gallon, while diesel stands at $6.33.
And Americans are not happy about it, with Trump’s approval rating plummeting to the low 30s, a historic low.
Meanwhile, CNN’s latest survey, released last week, found that roughly two-thirds of respondents, including around one-third of Republicans, believe Trump’s policies have made economic conditions worse. Nearly seven in 10 said he had not done enough to bring prices down.
And that anger with Trump is translating into increasingly bleak midterm prospects for Republicans with some polls giving Democrats a roughly 10-point advantage on the generic congressional ballot.
Behind closed doors, some Republicans are reportedly growing alarmed about their prospects.
Carlos Curbelo, a former Republican congressman who lost his competitive Florida seat during Trump’s first midterm elections in 2018, described the current political climate as exceptionally difficult for the party.
“The environment is about as tough as one could expect,” Curbelo told Politico. “There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House—not in recent weeks, anyway.”
