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A recent headline from The Hill caught my eye this week: “Almost 7 in 10 say Supreme Court should keep birthright citizenship in place: Survey.” The survey the article is referencing was released this week by Quinnipiac University, and showed 69 percent of respondents supporting birthright citizenship, while 27 percent were opposed.

I found this startling, because it doesn’t really jibe with the other polling we have on this issue. This turns out to be one of those types of questions where how a pollster writes the survey matters a lot to how people view the issue. So this week on The Trendline, we’re going deep on birthright citizenship, how pollsters ask about it, and what we can glean about Americans’ opinions on the issue.

To set the table, a bit of history. The first sentence of the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.” In various court cases, this sentence has been clarified; in 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that the sentence applies to anybody born on U.S. soil, regardless of the immigration status of their parents. (There are some rare exceptions, such as for diplomats and foreign royalty.)

Despite various legal challenges, this 1898 precedent has stood ever since. But in January 2025, President Donald Trump signed an executive order seeking to limit birthright citizenship only to babies born to parents that have either citizenship or permanent legal status in the United States. This order was quickly challenged in court and is one of the final Supreme Court cases that is yet to be decided this term. (We expect a decision next week.)

As with any hot-button issue before the court, we’ve had plenty of polling on whether people agree with the Trump administration here or if they prefer to keep birthright citizenship in place. By and large the polling shows that people support birthright citizenship as currently understood, but the margins vary significantly by pollster. (Note: these are not all the polls we know of that ask about birthright citizenship but a sample to demonstrate the range).

Of course as with many policy issues, a lot of the differences come down to how pollsters word the question. The pollsters that found lower support generally presented the question in a framing that emphasized the legal status of the parents. For example, the YouGov poll, which had the lowest level of support for birthright citizenship at a margin of just 9 percentage points, specified in the question wording that the issue is about undocumented immigrants. They asked if respondents would support “limiting birthright citizenship by no longer giving U.S. citizenship to children born in the U.S. either to undocumented immigrants or to some temporary visitors.” The Data for Progress poll also mentioned the legal status of the parents in the question wording.

The Ipsos/Reuters poll, which also showed relatively low support, framed this question more neutrally: “Do you support or oppose ending birthright citizenship, which makes anyone born in the U.S. a citizen?” But a different type of polling issue was at play here, known as “priming.” Immediately before this question, the survey asked respondents if they “think it’s a good thing or bad thing that children born in the U.S. are U.S. citizens by birth, regardless of the legal status of their parents?” So even though the birthright citizenship question is framed neutrally, respondents were prepared by the pollster to be thinking about the legal status of the parents before the question was presented.

On the other hand, the Quinnipiac survey, which found the highest support for birthright citizenship with a margin of 42 percentage points, presented this question less as a matter of policy and more as a question of legal precedent. Rather than ask about birthright citizenship directly, the pollster asked the following: “The Supreme Court ruled in 1898 that under the U.S. Constitution anyone born in the United States is a U.S. citizen, regardless of their parents’ citizenship. Do you think the court should keep that ruling in place, or reverse it?” This is, in many ways, fundamentally different than asking if voters support birthright citizenship itself and perhaps contributed to the significant difference in the results.

I did find one survey that showed birthright citizenship underwater by 25 percentage points, conducted by McLaughlin & Associates in May. However, the question wording was so biased that I did not feel comfortable including it on this table. The question first told respondents that “the Fourteenth Amendment was written after the Civil War to make freed slaves citizens. Today it’s interpreted to mean any child born on U.S. soil is automatically a citizen — even if both parents entered illegally or came on a tourist visa.” It then asked if respondents agreed with restricting birthright citizenship to babies born to citizens or those with permanent legal status, asserting this is “what the amendment was actually meant to do.” By presenting this language, it’s essentially giving the answer to respondents rather than asking what they think about the issue.

As we saw with questions about who should be deported in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election, voters have complicated views about who should be granted citizenship when you ask more granular questions.

In the AP-NORC survey, asked generally if all children born in the U.S. should automatically be granted citizenship, 65 percent of respondents said yes. But in the same survey, almost half, 49 percent, said that children born to parents in the country illegally should not be automatically granted citizenship. These views mirror what we saw in advance of the 2024 election, when voters simultaneously said they supported deporting all immigrants in the U.S. illegally but opposed deporting undocumented immigrants who didn’t have a criminal record or separating noncitizen parents from citizen children.

All told Americans seem at least somewhat supportive of birthright citizenship, but they’re also a bit wary of providing citizenship to children of illegal immigrants. How pollsters ask these questions makes a big difference in how Americans answer them, so it can be difficult to get a solid read on what exactly Americans think about the issue.

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Other polling nuggets

• Americans’ faith in the success of the negotiations with Iran will lead to lasting peace. Last week, we noted an RMG research survey that showed 47 percent believe the war will end in the near future. This week, in an Ipsos/Reuters poll (June 18 - 22, 2026), just 18 percent said they thought the preliminary agreement was likely to lead to a lasting peace between the two nations, while 63 percent thought it was not likely. A majority — 52 percent — said that considering the costs and benefits, the Iran war was not worth it while 24 percent said it was.

• Every year, the polling company Verasight conducts a survey with questions submitted by attendees at the annual conference for the American Association for Public Opinion Research. This year’s survey was released this week, and it’s full of interesting questions about all kinds of topics including race, AI, and polls themselves. In a question submitted by yours truly, Verasight asked respondents how many Americans they believe approve of the job Trump is doing as president. Our official job approval average for Trump currently shows 37.1 percent of Americans approve of the president; the lowest it has ever been was 36.4 percent in late May. Nevertheless, a majority (52 percent) said they believed less than 35 percent of Americans approve of the president, including 18 percent who said the number was less than 25 percent. Responses, of course, were highly partisan, with 50 percent of Republicans saying they thought over 45 percent of Americans approved of the president, while 73 percent of Democrats said his approval was 35 percent or less.

• According to a new YouGov survey (June 18 - 22, 2026), Americans are pretty confident in our ability to do all kinds of things. Seventy percent thought they could pass the U.S. citizenship test, and majorities thought they could perform CPR or the Heimlich maneuver if needed. On the other hand, just four percent of Americans say they think they could beat a chess grandmaster in a single game of chess. Six percent believe that they could pilot a helicopter to a safe landing or hotwire a car in under a minute. Ten percent said they thought they could navigate to a destination using only the stars. And by a 12 percentage point margin, Americans think they could perform a random stranger’s job for a day, 38 percent to 26 percent (another 36 percent were unsure.)

Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 1:00 PM Eastern on June 26, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

The Democratic margin in the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot remained stable this week, rounding to 6 points. And in case you missed it, we made a minor methodological change to how we calculate the average this week.

Trump’s job approval

President Trump’s approval rating among U.S. adults moved about 1 point on net this week, with his approval dropping 0.2 percent and disapproval rising 0.7 percent. An average of 37.1 percent of Americans approve of the president, while an average of 59.4 percent disapprove.

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Here is what our published generic ballot average looked like yesterday morning, June 24, 2026:

And here is what our generic ballot average looked like this morning, June 25, 2026 (before entering any new polls for the day):

The difference in these trends stems from how the model that powers our averages treats polls of registered voters versus those of likely voters. In this post from the Methods Desk, we explain how these adjustments work and what we changed.

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At early stages of the election cycle, most election polls are conducted among registered voters — who pollsters identify either by using lists of registered voters compiled by states or asking respondents themselves if they are registered to vote — but this group is not a perfect match for the electorate in a given year. That’s because there are many registered voters who won’t actually turn out to vote on Election Day. In 2024, for example, there were roughly 210 million registered voters across the country — but only 152 million cast ballots in the presidential election.

To try to produce poll results that better match election outcomes, pollsters also sometimes sample voters they determine (by various means) to have a high likelihood of actually turning out to vote. The number of likely voter polls usually increases the closer we get to the election.

Historically, likely voter polls have offered more accurate predictions of upcoming elections than polls of registered voters (or those of the entire adult population) — so those are the polls we want to anchor most to when averaging pre-election polls for public consumption. However, there are relatively few of these, and other surveys still provide information our averages can use (mostly in detecting trends within groups over time), so we don’t want to throw them out entirely. How can we make use of polls of the wrong populations when calculating an average among likely voters?

The solution we came up with for our generic ballot average is to estimate the difference in support for each party between polls of both likely and registered voters (and all adults). Then we adjust the polls of the incorrect populations back toward the population of likely voters. We do this by subtracting whatever residual our model detects for each of the two wrong populations (sometimes it’s zero!) from all the polls of that population. This makes polls of registered voters “look like” polls of likely voters. Then, the adjusted polls get run through our average, and ta-da! You have an average of public opinion among likely voters.

For most of the 2026 election cycle, we had been running our average of generic ballot polls anchored to the population of registered voters while we waited for pollsters to release more likely voter samples. But we switched the model to estimate likely voter opinion on June 1, 2026 — resulting in those sharp changes in each party’s support that appeared on the old chart.

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And that brings us to today. We thought those sharp changes were distracting, so we have recalculated the generic ballot average to smooth out the transition from modeling party support among registered voters to likely voters. Because the number of likely voter polls early in a campaign is very small, this leads to an unstable estimate of the gap between likely and registered voters, and a bumpy average early in the cycle when estimating likely voters.

Our solution is straightforward: We calculate both the average of registered and likely voter-adjusted polls and combine them, putting more weight on the likely voter version as the election gets closer. Now, our generic ballot averages start out at the beginning of a cycle adjusting both likely voter and all adult polls toward those of registered voters. At one year before the election, we add in a likely voter-adjusted version, and begin to slowly increase the weight on this average. In March of the election year, it’s 50-50 between the likely and registered voter-adjusted averages, and by June, the average-of-averages is 100% likely voter-adjusted and 0% registered voter-adjusted.

This approach produces our new, smooth curve in the generic ballot average. We are developing a similar technique for our primary and general-election horse-race polling averages.

And here is our latest generic ballot average as of 10:00 AM Eastern on June 25, 2026:

A fully transparent polling aggregator

One of our organizational values here at FiftyPlusOne.news is to be maximally transparent with our methodology and methods-related decision making so users know what they’re getting and why they’re getting it. We believe posts like this are critical for both building in public in general, and for producing the most trusted, most accurate polling averages (and, soon, election forecasts!) available to the public.

If you saw the updated average online before this article was sent out (I made some code changes late at night before the rest of the team was up to copy check this piece), we regret any confusion this caused you.

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On Monday, June 15, 2026, Iran and the United States announced their agreement to a Memorandum of Understanding in the ongoing conflict. This MOU outlines terms for a potential peace agreement and kicks off a new set of negotiations over the next 60 days to finalize that agreement. Republicans on Capitol Hill have had mixed reactions to the agreement, with some expressing concerns about key elements, such as allowing Iran access to $300 billion in reconstruction funds and the long-term fate of Iran’s military proxies.

Today on The Trendline, we’re taking a look at every poll we’ve seen about Iran since this MOU was signed. Admittedly, that’s not very many polls (just three), but it’s our first glimpse into how Americans feel about the MOU and a possible end to the conflict in Iran.

The first survey comes from RMG Research/Napolitan News Service. It began fielding the same day as the announcement was made (June 15), and was in the field for 2 days. In this poll, we see voters expressing optimism about some elements of the deal. Fifty-eight percent said that the agreement to end the war will be good for the United States, while 20 percent said it would be bad for the U.S. and 21 percent were not sure. Even more voters were optimistic about the deal’s impact on the economy; 67 percent said the agreement would be good for the economy, while just 18 percent said it would be bad and 16 percent were unsure.

However, voters were mixed on whether this deal is actually likely to work. After being told that “the U.S. and Iran have announced an agreement to end the war, though some details will be worked out over the next 60 days,” voters were asked how likely it is that the war will “end in the near future.” Just 13 percent said it was very likely to end in the near future, and 34 percent said somewhat likely. Thirty-two percent said it’s not very likely to end, and 9 percent said it’s not at all likely.

All told, that’s 47 percent who think the war is at least somewhat likely to end soon, and 41 percent who think it’s not. So even though voters think the deal will benefit the U.S., both overall and economically, they’re not quite sure things are going to work out during the negotiation period.

The next survey, from Quantus Insights, was in the field the two days following the announcement of the agreement. In this poll voters were told that “the U.S. and Iran recently announced a preliminary agreement to stop hostilities, reopen shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, and begin 60 days of talks on Iran’s nuclear program and sanctions.” They were then asked if they approve or disapprove of the agreement. Approval was overwhelmingly positive — 56 percent said they approved while just 13 percent said they disapproved. Another 16 percent responded that they “neither approve nor disapprove,” and 15 percent were unsure.

Approval of the deal in the Quantus Insights poll is surprisingly bipartisan. While just 10 percent of Democrats in the survey said they approved of how Trump is handling his job as president, 48 percent said they approved of the Iran MOU while 16 percent disapproved. Among Republicans, 66 percent approved of the MOU, and 55 percent of independents approved.

It’s worth noting, however, that the language of the question may have slightly improved approval ratings for the agreement. The question emphasizes specifically two immediate outcomes: “stopping hostilities” and “reopening shipping through the Strait of Hormuz,” without acknowledging some of the elements in the agreement that have caused concerns, like the reconstruction fund. Admittedly, those more controversial elements are yet to be fully negotiated. While the two items mentioned in the question are expected to occur during the 60-day negotiation period, it may have made the situation sound a bit rosier to poll respondents.

And on the nuclear negotiations, there’s a warning sign in this poll. Voters were told “as part of any deal, the U.S. may push Iran to give up, remove, or destroy its stockpile of highly enriched uranium.” They were then asked whether they would approve of the U.S. “making this a condition of the agreement.” Sixty-three percent said they strongly approved of Iran getting rid of its nuclear material being a condition of the agreement, and another 11 percent said they somewhat approved.

This could be a sticking point in any ultimate negotiations. Last July the U.S. bombed Iran’s nuclear sites, burying the enriched uranium deep underground. According to experts, removal of the nuclear material would be extremely difficult. The MOU itself doesn’t necessarily call for removal of the material but states that it should be disposed of with a “minimum methodology to be down-blending on site.” But even that would first require a risky, complicated extraction process. So if 74 percent of the public thinks this should be a condition of the final agreement, they may find themselves disappointed.

The third and final poll we’ve seen since the MOU was announced was conducted by YouGov on June 18. This poll asked Americans whether, if the final deal that was outlined in the MOU is ultimately signed, the U.S. or Iran will be better off than they were before the start of the conflict. In both questions, a slight plurality of Americans agree that both countries will be better off than they were at the start of the conflict, with 31 percent saying so about America and 36 percent saying so about Iran.

However, it’s clear that Americans think this is a bit better for Iran than for the U.S. Five percentage points more said that Iran will be better off if the deal is signed than said the same about the U.S. And by nine points, more said America will be worse off than said so about Iran.

As with many things about American life, there’s a significant difference by partisanship here. Just 12 percent of Democrats said America would be better off, while 45 percent said it would be worse off. Independents also slightly lean toward negativity about the deal: 24 percent said it would make the U.S. better off, while 31 percent said worse off. However among Republicans there’s much more optimism, with 58 percent saying the deal would make the country better off and just 6 percent saying it’d be worse off.

To sum up where we’re at: Americans are optimistic about some of the terms of the deal and approve of it being signed. They see positive outcomes for the economy in the future as a result of the deal. But they strongly agree that we should require Iran to remove or destroy its nuclear material (which could be impossible),think this is better for Iran than for the U.S. (by a slim margin), and aren’t fully sold on whether or not this deal is even going to work. Of course, we’ll keep an eye on the polls in the coming weeks and bring you more Iran polling as the situation develops.

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Other polling nuggets

• According to the latest YouGov/The Economist poll (June 13 - 15, 2026), a majority of Americans support a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Electoral College. Fifty-six percent said they would support an amendment to choose the president by popular vote, while 23 percent were opposed. Even more popular was a potential constitutional amendment to require a balanced federal budget, which Americans favored 72 percent to 7 percent. Some potential amendments didn’t get Americans’ approval, though, such as repealing the Second Amendment (Americans were opposed 55 to 21), allowing presidents to seek more than two terms (Americans were opposed 70 to 16), and eliminating birthright citizenship (Americans were opposed 53 to 29).

• High gas prices continue to cause difficulties for Americans. According to an NPR/PBS News/Marist University poll (June 8 - 11, 2026), 78 percent of Americans said gas prices were putting a strain on their household budgets, with 34 percent saying they’re a major strain and 44 percent a minor strain. The problem appears to be particularly acute for Latinos. While 30 percent of white Americans and 36 percent of Black Americans said gas prices were a major strain, among Latinos that number jumps to a majority of respondents (52 percent). Another 32 percent of Latinos said that gas prices were a minor strain.

• Americans have a complicated view of our shared identity, according to a new NBC News/More Perfect poll conducted by Hart Research Associates/Public Opinion Strategies. The poll found a majority (54 percent) of Americans said that “most Americans share the same core values but disagree about policies and issues,” compared to 44 percent who said that “most Americans have fundamentally different core values.” At the same time, though, just 18 percent said there is more that unites Republicans and Democrats while 80 percent said there is more that divides them. But the division may be perceived to be more at the elite level than anything else: 82 percent agreed that “most ordinary Americans, regardless of political party, have more in common with each other than with people in our country who hold a lot of power.”

• Have you heard The Secret? Apparently, Americans have. A majority of Americans, 53 percent, said they believed that “thinking positively about desired outcomes can directly turn those desires into reality in the physical world” in a YouGov poll (June 12, 2026). Thirty percent said they didn’t believe it. In the same survey, 44 percent said they believe in ghosts, while 42 percent said they didn’t. And 29 percent said they believed that some people can put curses on others, while 57 percent said they didn’t.

Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 1:00 PM Eastern on June 19, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

The Democratic margin in the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot rounded to 5 points this week, down from its high of 7 points in late May/early June. About 49 percent of likely voters plan to vote for a Democrat, while 43 percent plan to vote for a Republican.

Trump’s job approval

President Trump’s approval rating among U.S. adults has recovered from its lows, improving by about 2 points on net since last week. An average of 37.3 percent of Americans approve of the president, up from 36.6 last week, while disapproval has fallen from 59.6 percent to 58.7 percent.

Paid subscribers to 50+1 get access to premium analysis, plus sortable tables and complete data access on our polling website. If you want to follow the 2026 cycle with the best data at your fingertips, become a paid subscriber.

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We’re about halfway through the primary calendar for 2026 (27 states have held their primaries thus far), and a curious pattern has emerged. Twenty-nine sitting members of the House of Representatives are running for other offices — a historically high number — but of the 18 that have already faced election, just five of them have won nomination. Republican Reps. Ashley Hinson, Andy Barr, and Kevin Hern won the primaries for open U.S. Senate seats in Iowa, Kentucky, and Oklahoma, respectively, while Republican Reps. Mike Collins and Barry Moore won runoffs for Senate seats in Alabama and Georgia. One other member has also advanced to a runoff, while everyone else has either withdrawn before their primary began or lost their primary.

This amounts to a failure rate of about 67 percent for sitting House members seeking another office, a historically abysmal record. From 1990 through 2024, we identified 279 House members who resigned to run for another office. Of these, just 83 failed to earn their party’s nomination, for a failure rate of around 30 percent. No individual cycle since 1990 has seen House members lose in primaries as frequently as 2026; the previous record was 50 percent, achieved in 2020.

It’s no secret that Americans are frustrated with Congress, which means being a member of Congress may be as much of a liability as a selling point for those seeking another office. Congressional approval in most polls is even lower than approval of President Donald Trump. In a poll from RMG Research/Napolitan News Service earlier this month, 68 percent of Americans said they would vote to replace the entire Congress if it was possible to do so. And 54 percent said a randomly chosen group of American citizens would do a better job than the current Congress, while just 19 percent said they wouldn’t do a better job.

However, this public distaste for Congress isn’t all that new — according to YouGov/Economist polling, approval of Congress hasn’t been above water in at least 17 years — so there’s probably something deeper underlying the poor track record from sitting House members running for other offices this year.

Of course, this record can and will shift by the end of the primary season. Several candidates that we anticipate winning their primaries have yet to face the voters, like Republican Rep. Byron Donalds in Florida’s gubernatorial primary and Republican Rep. Tom Tiffany in Wisconsin’s. But neither of these primary contests is particularly competitive, as GOP support has largely coalesced around each of them. Historically, that’s been a more typical path for House members running for other offices, but not this cycle. The number of House members running in competitive primary contests is especially high this year, and seems to be a major factor driving the high rate of primary losses this year.

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More House members are running for other offices, even if their path to victory is unclear

This year’s primary season features 29 sitting House members running for another office, a record in the years since 1990. From 1990 through 2024, an average of just 16 House members have run for other offices each cycle, with the previous record being 23 candidates in 2018.

Of course, election watchers have observed that politicians are retiring from Congress at a particularly high rate this year. In fact, one factor contributing to House members seeking other offices is a high number of open Senate seats, as the Senate has more members leaving office this year than it has in over a decade. But while House members seeking Senate seats is nothing new in Congress, leaving the House to run for a different elected office — even if their odds of winning aren’t particularly strong — can also be a way out that allows a candidate to save face with the public, rather than simply retiring.

Just look at Rep. Chip Roy, who lost the Republican primary for Texas attorney general, or Reps. Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, who both ran and lost in the same Republican primary for South Carolina governor. All three of them had found themselves at odds with President Trump while serving in the House — a factor that certainly complicated their relationships with the rest of their party, and their paths to seeking other offices.

That goes to show that it’s not just that more sitting House members are running for other offices than in previous cycles; they are also running more often than ever in races that are highly competitive. We classified candidates as competitive or noncompetitive in their primary races based on the gap between the two leading candidates in pre-election polling (when available) and primary election results (if the election has already happened). Candidates were classified as competitive in their primaries if they trailed or led in polling within a month of the primary election by less than 15 percent, or if they won or lost the nomination by less than 15 percent (see below for detailed methodology).

Halfway through the primary season, 2026 already features 12 House members who have run in primary contests where they’re in close competition with other candidates, more than in any other year in the last 18 even-year election cycles.

If we look at all House candidates running for other offices this year, we also see a historically high percentage in competitive races. As of June 17, over half of House members running for other offices in 2026 have faced or are facing a competitive race, with 16 of 29 candidates meeting our definition. That’s the first time this has been the case in the period we looked at since 1990; the previous high was in 2010, when 47 percent of sitting House members seeking higher office were in competitive primary races, and the average from 1990 to 2024 was 31 percent. Contributing to the abysmal track record of House candidates at this point in the cycle: Of the 18 candidates who have already had their primary, 12 of these were in competitive races, and most of them lost. (Meanwhile, three more candidates lost or withdrew from races in which they were not competitive.)

Now, House members have always had a pretty spotty record in competitive primaries; in the 87 competitive primaries we looked at that featured a sitting House member between 1990 and 2024, House members won 43 of them and lost 44 of them, almost perfectly tied. But that isn’t what we’re seeing so far this year. Of the 12 competitive races that have already happened, sitting House members have lost nine of them outright, while two went on to win in a competitive runoff and the last, Rep. Julia Letlow, who is running for Senate in Louisiana, will face a runoff later this month. That’s the worst record for House members in competitive races for other offices in any cycle since 1990, when all 3 House members in competitive races lost.

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House members are jumping into races that already have strong candidates

Another unusual feature of this slate of competitive primaries is a high number of House members running for other offices against sitting incumbents or running against each other. Four races in our dataset this cycle feature two sitting House members (which guarantees at least four House members will lose), and another four feature a House member challenging an incumbent. Of the 12 House members either running against each other or an incumbent, nine are in competitive races, seven have already lost their primaries, one is facing a runoff, and only Collins has won.

That’s historically rare. In election cycles since 1990, only one pair of House members on average has run against each other for another office; seven out of the 18 cycles we looked at have no House-on-House matchups. And primarying an incumbent is also quite rare; in only four cycles since 1990 has more than one House member challenged a sitting incumbent, most of them recent: 2006, 2020, 2022, and 2026.

Of the four sitting House members challenging an incumbent this year, two are Republicans who challenged senators that had gotten on Trump’s bad side: Republican Rep. Wesley Hunt in Texas and Letlow. Neither of these was able to win their primary outright; Hunt failed to make the primary runoff, and Letlow is facing a primary runoff on June 27.

A third Republican challenging an incumbent governor, Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota, may have thought the incumbent would be weaker because he had been elevated from lieutenant governor rather than directly elected to the position; Johnson failed to make the runoff in a tight four-way contest in which all four candidates received between 21 and 31 percent of the vote. The lone Democrat challenging a Senate incumbent, Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, is doing so more for political reasons than ideological ones, campaigning on the message that Sen. Ed Markey is too old to continue to serve.

In addition to more candidates running against each other or against incumbents, this cycle features no House members running unopposed for other offices — the only other time that’s happened in the years we looked at was in 2022. Since 1990, on average three House members have run unopposed for other offices each cycle, with the most coming in 1990 (6 ran unopposed), followed by 1994, 2014, and 2024 (5 each).

Members of Congress have long viewed the House as a stepping stone to other offices, and more than ever are leaving the chamber this year and setting their sights elsewhere. But while most are aiming for the usual targets — Senate seats or governor’s mansions — many of them are falling short, failing even to win their own party’s nomination as they wade into crowded primary fields.

Primaries are one of the main ways that parties determine their future direction and leadership, but as both parties undergo generational and ideological changes, an unusually large number of House members are betting their careers on competitive races they might not win. Whether driven by frustration with Congress, intraparty feuds, or ambitions for higher office, so far most of those bets have come up short. The path forward for both parties is still taking shape in this primary season, but in many cases, it doesn’t seem to run through the House.

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Many thanks to Tia Yang for her support making this article possible, and once it was possible, making it better.

Methodology

In cycles where it was available, the House Press Gallery Departing Member List (previously called the “Casualty List”) was used to identify members who resigned to seek other offices. In other cycles, a variety of sources were used to identify House members who sought other offices. As a result, the data may not be fully comprehensive for older cycles; all members who ran for higher office, such as Senate, governor, or president are included here, but some who ran for lower office may not have been identified.

To determine a candidate’s competitiveness in a race, we first considered election results for each race. In a partisan primary, if a candidate either won or lost by less than 15 percentage points, that candidate is considered competitive. In nonpartisan jungle primaries, if a candidate either won or lost by less than 7.5 percentage points when compared only to other candidates of the same party, that candidate is considered competitive. For presidential elections, any candidate receiving at least 200 delegates at the national convention is considered competitive (none of the candidates in this dataset met that threshold).

For any candidate not considered competitive based on election results, or in races where the primary has not yet occurred, we relied on polls to determine competitiveness. Polls were sourced from a variety of aggregators, including FiftyPlusOne, RealClearPolitics, FiveThirtyEight archives, and Wikipedia. If a candidate led or trailed in pre-election polling by less than 15 percentage points in the most recent polling average produced by a reputable aggregator, that candidate is considered competitive. If no such polling average exists, we take the average of the most recent poll from each pollster conducted within the last month of the campaign. If no such polls exist, we relied exclusively on election results to determine competitiveness.

For jungle primaries, both of the top two performing candidates are considered to have won the primary, regardless of whether a runoff was required. A candidate who failed to advance to a runoff but got the most votes out of any member of their party does not count as a primary loser, since in a traditional primary system that candidate would likely have advanced to the general election. These candidates are instead categorized as “best in primary” and counted among primary winners where relevant.

To request access to the data used in this article, please reach out to data@fiftyplusone.news.

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It’s time for one of the most anticipated sporting events globally — the 2026 World Cup! For the first time, the tournament is being hosted by multiple nations, including the United States, alongside Mexico and Canada. Have Americans noticed? Do they care? This week on The Trendline, we dig in to see how Americans feel about the World Cup, soccer, and the U.S.’s role in this year’s contest.

According to an Ipsos poll (May 29 - 31, 2026), most Americans have at least heard about the World Cup. Fourteen percent say they have heard a lot about the tournament, and another 50 percent have heard a little. But in the same survey, just knowing the event is coming doesn’t translate to enthusiasm: just 7 percent say they are very or extremely excited about the World Cup, while 18 percent say they are somewhat excited and 73 percent say they are not too or not at all excited.

Among fans of professional soccer, though, there’s quite a bit more enthusiasm. According to a YouGov/CBS News poll (Jun. 2 - 4, 2026), only 17 percent of Americans overall say that they are excited about the World Cup, but among fans of professional soccer, that number jumps to 52 percent. Another 24 percent of soccer fans say they are “pleased, but not excited.” However, soccer fandom in the survey is a fairly limited population in the U.S.: just 11 percent of respondents say they are “big fans” of professional soccer, 17 percent say they are “casual fans,” and the vast majority, 71 percent, say they are not fans.

And despite the American men’s team’s spotty record in previous World Cups (of the 22 tournaments that have been held so far, the U.S. last made the top 3 teams in the very first tournament in 1930, and failed to qualify or withdrew in half of the contests), Americans have at least some confidence in their team this year. In the Ipsos poll, 47 percent said they didn’t have high expectations for the U.S. in this year’s World Cup, but 49 percent disagreed. And 26 percent said they would be disappointed if the U.S. doesn’t win the tournament (in their predictions for the tournament, not a single writer for ESPN placed the U.S. in the top four).

Politics, however, has intervened in the World Cup, as it often does in American life. Amid increased immigration scrutiny across the country, reports have swirled about fans and players potentially being turned away at airports; at least one referee from Somalia was denied entry to the U.S. for the tournament. Americans don’t feel great about immigration enforcement at the games either (which the Trump administration has downplayed): in a Washington Post/University of Maryland poll (May 14 - 18, 2026), 65 percent of respondents said they opposed ICE agents being present at matches, while just 35 percent supported the enforcement.

And despite some initial questions, the Iranian men’s team is allowed to participate in the contest, a move generally supported by Americans. In the Washington Post/University of Maryland poll, 75 percent said that the Iranian team should be allowed to play. Sixty-nine percent also said that players from Iran that wanted to stay in the U.S. due to fear of persecution back home should be allowed to remain here.

As to attending the games, some upcoming matches still aren’t sold out, so there’s still some opportunity for fans to catch a match in person. However, the price might be a barrier. The cheapest seats for the U.S. home opener against Paraguay today, for example, are over $1,000. Fifty-nine percent of respondents in the Ipsos poll said it is “too expensive for the average American to attend a game,” and just 2 percent said it was affordable for average Americans (the rest were unsure). In a YouGov poll (May 21 - 24, 2026), just 1 percent of respondents said they would be willing to pay over $1,000 to watch a game that includes the U.S. team; 66 percent said they wouldn’t buy a ticket at any price.

But it’s not only World Cup games that Americans aren’t interested in attending. Asked in the YouGov survey about their previous soccer interest, nearly half (49 percent) said they had never attended a soccer match of any kind, not even a youth game. Just 17 percent said they had previously attended a professional soccer match, and 8 percent said they had been to a previous World Cup game.

However, it’s not all bad news for soccer fans. Interest in the World Cup has been steadily growing, according to YouGov. Ten percent of respondents indicated that they watched matches in 2010, 13 percent in 2014, 17 percent in 2018, and 21 percent in 2022. We’ll find out soon if 2026 continues the trend of Americans learning to love the sport that the rest of the world has long embraced.

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Other polling nuggets

• While the political universe may be all abuzz about the Maine Senate race, most Americans are not paying attention. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll (Jun. 3 - 8, 2026) taken the week before his primary, 63 percent of Americans say that they have heard nothing at all about Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner, while 14 percent say they have heard a lot about him and 22 percent say they have heard a little. More Americans have heard about Ken Paxton, the Republican candidate for Senate in Texas, than Platner: 19 percent have heard a lot about Paxton, 27 percent have heard a little, and 52 percent have heard nothing at all.

• Americans are split about congressional redistricting, according to a new Emerson College poll (Jun. 7 - 8, 2026). Thirty-eight percent told the pollster that mid-decade redistricting is generally a good thing for the country, while 46 percent said it’s generally a bad thing. Support is strongly driven by Republicans, 56 percent of whom said that mid-decade redistricting is a good thing, while 29 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of independents agreed. Majorities (51 percent of both) of Democrats and independents said mid-decade redistricting is generally a bad thing for the country.

• In a new annual poll from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the de Beaumont Foundation (Mar. 19 - Apr. 1, 2026), trust in the nation’s public health sector has dramatically fallen in the last year. Just half of Americans say they trust health recommendations from the CDC; 77 percent trusted the agency in the 2025 survey. The change is being driven mostly by Democrats and independents — trust in the CDC among Democrats fell 58 percentage points since last year’s wave, and among independents it fell 30 percentage points. Trust among Republicans was more or less the same in the two surveys. In addition to lower confidence in the CDC, trust in state and local health departments has also fallen since last year, with 66 percent now trusting their state health department and 70 percent their local health department.

• Belief in aliens is growing, according to a new YouGov/CBS News poll (Jun. 2 - 4, 2026). Sixty-three percent of Americans said they believe there is intelligent life on other planets, up from 48 percent in the 1990s and 56 percent in 2017. And 21 percent believe we have already made contact with intelligent life from other planets, while 33 percent say we will never make contact with intelligent aliens. When it comes to our government’s handling of UFOs, Americans are deeply skeptical. A large majority — 84 percent — say the government knows more about the issue than it’s telling the public.

Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 11:00 AM Eastern on June 12, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

The Democratic margin in the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot rounded to 6 points this week, staying more or less steady from last week. About 49 percent of likely voters plan to vote for a Democrat, while 43 percent plan to vote for a Republican.

Trump’s job approval

President Trump’s approval rating among U.S. adults has fallen a tad since last week. An average of 36.6 percent approve of the president, down from 36.9 last week, while his disapproval has risen from 59.4 to 59.6.

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On Tuesday, June 9, 2026, the Trump-aligned group Citizens for Sanity announced a six-figure ad buy in Texas. The ad in question features an AI-generated facsimile of James Talarico, wearing a dress and singing a parody of the Sound of Music classic “My Favorite Things,” in which he praises gender transitions for minors.

This ad comes on the heels of the California gubernatorial primary, in which candidate Spencer Pratt grew to public prominence in part due to widely shared AI-generated videos featuring himself and his opponents, often in scenes inspired by comic books. While many of these videos were created by fans, rather than the Pratt campaign, Pratt did share many of them on his social media pages. And last year, in the highly anticipated mayoral race in New York City, Andrew Cuomo drew widespread criticism for his AI-created campaign ads featuring Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Artificial intelligence is changing the game when it comes to political campaigning, and more than half of campaign consultants say they use AI regularly. But campaigns should be careful how they use it: there’s a growing body of evidence to suggest that far from promoting your desired candidate, this kind of campaign advertising might backfire.

Americans don’t trust AI – and states are responding

Americans are deeply skeptical of artificial intelligence, generally. In a Siena University/The New York Times survey (May 11 - 15, 2026), just 16 percent of registered voters said that AI is “mostly good,” while 35 percent said it is “mostly bad,” 45 percent said “neither good nor bad,” and the rest were unsure. Democrats are slightly more skeptical than the public overall, with 14 percent saying mostly good and 42 percent saying mostly bad. Republicans, on the other hand, are a bit less skeptical than Americans generally, with 22 percent saying AI is mostly good, and 27 percent saying mostly bad.

Asked about the impact of AI on society today, just 10 percent said it has a positive impact in a Reuters/Ipsos poll (May 15 - 18, 2026). A global survey from Baringo reported that worldwide, 70 percent of people are uncomfortable with AI-generated media. And when it comes to political campaigns, Americans have deep concerns. According to a Marist University survey (Mar. 2 - 4, 2026), 85 percent of Americans think that AI-generated political content will spread misinformation related to the upcoming midterms.

Against that backdrop, at least 29 states have enacted laws either prohibiting or restricting the use of artificial intelligence in campaign ads, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. (This, of course, means that 21 states have NOT restricted the use of AI in campaign materials). However, in many cases these restrictions don’t kick in until 60 or 90 days prior to the election, so for now, it’s a free-for-all.

In most states with AI campaign laws, the restrictions only require that ads depicting a candidate doing or saying something they did not do or say need to be labeled as manipulated or AI-generated. Moreover, in much of the legislation, the restrictions only apply if the media being generated is intended to harm or injure a candidate, making legal enforcement tricky. Pratt, for example, generated AI videos for his campaign without labeling them as such, but if they weren’t “intended to harm a candidate or deceive voters into voting for or against a candidate,” then a disclosure is not required under California law. (We have yet to see if Pratt’s use of AI will be challenged by state authorities.)

A majority of campaign consultants are using AI at work

Despite state restrictions and distrust, campaign operatives are still turning to AI. In a survey of campaign consultants conducted by the American Association of Political Consultants this year, 59 percent of consultants said that they used AI at least weekly in their work, including over a third who said they use it daily. However, most are not using the technology to create ads: just 15 percent say that generating creative content has been a valuable use of AI.

Like most Americans, campaign consults have concerns about the ways that AI can mislead voters. Sixty-five percent of campaign consultants said that the use of deep fakes was among their top three concerns about AI in political campaigns, and 60 percent said that the spread of misinformation/disinformation was in their top 3 concerns.

But as with the general population, slight partisan differences are apparent in how campaign consultants think about artificial intelligence. Twenty percent of Republican consultants said that using AI to produce a campaign ad from beginning to end without disclosing that to the public would be an ethical use of AI; just 11 percent of Democratic consultants and 6 percent of nonpartisan consultants said the same. For AI-generated ads with disclosure, the partisan differences are even stronger: 68 percent of GOP-aligned consultants said that would be an ethical use of the technology, compared to 56 percent of Dem-aligned and 41 percent of nonpartisan consultants.

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AI-generated campaign ads might backfire with voters

The AAPC also has research suggesting that synthetic campaign ads might ultimately backfire. In a study from the AAPC Foundation, researchers added AI disclaimers to a variety of videos, some real and some fake, to test how voters responded.

When a video included an AI disclaimer, voters were significantly more distrustful of its content, and had increased skepticism about the message. Voters paid closer attention to videos with noticeable disclaimers, but were generally less receptive to the ad’s message when disclaimers were apparent. That is to say, if you put out an AI-generated ad of Talarico singing about how much he loves trans children, what you actually may be doing is making voters MORE skeptical of the claim that Talarico loves trans children. And once that trust has eroded, if another, more credible ad tries to try to make the same claim, it may be harder to convince voters of its veracity.

Incidentally, corporate America seems to have taken heed of the erosion of trust stemming from AI slop videos much more quickly than campaigns. There’s no shortage of articles from corporate consultants about maintaining brand trust in the age of AI. Campaigns, however, especially Republican campaigns, seem to not have gotten the hint yet. While we can’t know for sure why that is, it may be that President Donald Trump’s fondness for the technology (as evidenced by his Truth Social feed) has provided something of a permission structure for Republican candidates to engage in freer use of AI than we see in other areas of public life.

But if these sorts of AI-generated political ads don’t actually serve to improve your preferred candidates’ standing with voters, who are they for? I can only speculate here, but the experience of the Pratt campaign seems to suggest that these ads and videos are generated less to appeal to actual voters, and more to generate viral spread among online influencers that already like and support your candidate. That can lead to improved fundraising, more followers, and potentially a larger national profile.

Crucially, though, a large national profile isn’t necessarily going to help a candidate win a mayoral race in a specific city. What you actually need to win a mayoral race is more votes than the other candidates, and this sort of advertising may be accomplishing the opposite of that goal.

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As the nation gears up to celebrate its 250th birthday, feelings about American identity vary across the country. This week on The Trendline, we check in on how Americans feel about the nation, our shared values, and the upcoming celebrations.

In a Beacon Research/Shaw and Company Research/Fox News poll (May 15 - 18, 2026), Americans were split about America 250. Fifty-one percent of registered voters said they were excited for the 250th anniversary, while 49 percent said they weren’t. Among Republicans, 74 percent said they were excited, but just 35 percent of Democrats and 37 percent of independents agreed.

Partisan divisions go even further than excitement. Asked in an open-ended question to give one word that describes America today, just 27 percent gave a word with positive connotation, like “freedom” or “great,” while 65 percent gave a word with a negative connotation, like “declining” or “divided.” These responses fell along party lines; 85 percent of Democrats chose a word with a negative connotation, while Republicans were slightly more likely to choose a word with a positive connotation (46 percent to 43 percent).

These partisan divisions persist in other polling, too. In a survey from University of Massachusetts/YouGov (Mar. 20 - 25, 2026), Americans were asked to choose one option that best captured what the 250th birthday of our nation means to them. Thirty-seven percent said that the option that best describes the anniversary is “a proud national milestone,” 24 percent said it’s “not something I think much about,” 18 percent said it’s “mostly symbolic and ceremonial,” and 14 percent said it’s a “chance to reflect on our unfinished work.

But underneath these toplines are large partisan differences: a majority, 62 percent, of Republicans said the birthday is a proud national milestone, an opinion shared by just 20 percent of Democrats and 30 percent of independents. Democrats were most likely to say that the birthday is “not something I think much about” (29 percent) or a “chance to reflect on our unfinished work” (25 percent).

When it comes to our founding ideals, Americans are pessimistic about how we’re doing. In a University of Maryland Program for Public Consultation survey (Mar. 11 - 19, 2026), 63 percent of Americans say that the Founders would say our government was doing a poor job fulfilling their vision, an opinion shared by 73 percent of Democrats, 73 percent of independents, and 50 percent of Republicans. Americans don’t believe John Adams’ vision of an American government for “the common good” is being upheld: only 22 percent of respondents said that the government is run for “the benefit of all the people,” while 78 percent thought it was for the benefit of “a few big interests looking out for themselves.”

But the data about America isn’t all doom and gloom. Despite pessimism, particularly among Democrats and independents, about the country today, there’s a lot that unites Americans as well. In the University of Massachusetts/YouGov survey, majorities across the political spectrum said that the “founding ideals of the Declaration of Independence still guide the country in meaningful ways,” including 59 percent overall, 75 percent of Republicans, 52 percent of independents, and 51 percent of Democrats. And in an Ipsos survey (Feb. 25 - Mar. 4, 2026), 76 percent of respondents said that America has succeeded a great deal or a fair amount in “achieving the ideals for which this country was founded,” while just 21 percent said we had succeeded not very much or not at all.

Also in the Ipsos survey, there was broad agreement on many of the foundations of American identity. Asked how important various ideals were to being an American, the top answers were “treating people of all backgrounds equally” (84 percent), “believing in freedom, justice, and equality” (83 percent), voting (70 percent), understanding our founding documents (70 percent) and trying to “get ahead through one’s own efforts” (63 percent). Also notable are the ideals that people don’t think are important to being an American, such as having been born in the country (36 percent), flying the American flag (36 percent) or holding Christian beliefs (38 percent).

While the White House prepares for its America 250 events, including rallies and UFC matches, most Americans disapprove of the White House’s plans. In a YouGov survey (June 5, 2026), just 27 percent approved of holding a UFC fight at the White House as part of its celebrations, while 51 percent disapproved. There’s significant partisan division on the UFC fight: just 10 percent of Democrats and 19 percent of independents approve of the event, while 53 percent of Republicans approve.

Regardless of approval, though, most Americans probably won’t be attending. In an Elon University/YouGov poll (Apr. 30 - May 4, 2026), 41 percent said they would be likely to participate in events related to the 250th anniversary, while 50 percent said they wouldn’t. And Americans prefer to keep things closer to home: 71 percent said smaller, local events would feel more authentic, rather than larger, national events.

Despite feeling that times today are more unstable than average (70 percent said so in the Elon University poll), there’s still some love for America. Sixty-eight percent told the pollster they were proud to be an American, versus 26 percent who weren’t, and 65 percent said there’s no other country on Earth they’d rather live in than the United States today.

Asked who best exemplified American democracy’s highest ideals, more people (20 percent) chose Abraham Lincoln than anybody else. So we’ll let Lincoln himself close out today’s piece: “The struggle of today is not altogether for today; it is for a vast future also. With a reliance on Providence all the more firm and earnest, let us proceed in the great task which events have devolved upon us.”

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Other polling nuggets

• Opposition to data centers is growing, according to a new survey from Embold Research (May 5 - 10, 2026). Seventy percent of respondents say they oppose data centers being built in their local areas, with 58 percent saying they strongly oppose the developments. In December last year, the pollster found 52 percent opposition, including 36 percent strong opposition. Fifty-nine percent of respondents told the pollster that a new data center in their local area would increase electricity prices a lot, and another 14 percent said it would increase prices some. Just 2 percent thought new data centers would decrease their electricity prices.

• Fewer than one in three Americans think that Congress is doing its job, according to a new poll from the McCourtney Institute for Democracy/YouGov (May 19 - 26, 2026). Seventy-one percent said that Congress is doing a not very good or poor job, while 29 percent said it was doing a good or great job. As to the other two branches of government, 37 percent said that President Donald Trump is doing a good or great job, and a slight majority, 51 percent, said the same of the Supreme Court. Opinions on Trump are much stronger than the other branches: more Americans said he was doing a “great” job than either of the other two branches, and likewise more Americans said he was doing a “poor” job than either of the other two branches.

• Americans are pessimistic about prices in the near future, according to the latest Marquette Law School poll (May 20 - 26, 2026). Just 13 percent expect inflation to decrease over the next year, while a whopping 71 percent expect it to increase (16 percent say it will stay about the same). This expectation is on top of what the respondents said about how things have been going in the past 6 months already: 85 percent said their grocery bills had gone up in the last 6 months, and 95 percent said the price of gas had increased, including 80 percent who said it had increased “a lot.” Trump’s approval rating in the poll on handling inflation and cost of living is underwater by 56 percentage points, with 22 percent approving and 78 percent disapproving.

• In an RMG Research/Napolitan News survey (Jun. 1 - 2, 2026), most Americans favor keeping the clocks the same all year round. Sixty-two percent said they support making Daylight Savings Time permanent, while 22 percent opposed the change. Even after being informed about negative consequences of changing the clocks, such as health risks and increased numbers of car crashes, absolutely nothing changed: 63 percent said they supported permanent DST, while 23 percent opposed it.

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Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 11:00 AM Eastern on June 5, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

The Democratic margin in the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot rounded to 6 points this week, after briefly reaching 7 points last week. At writing, 49.2 percent of likely voters say they’ll cast their ballot for Democrats this fall versus 43.3 percent for the Republicans. The Democratic vote share is more or less the same as last week, while Republicans have increased by nearly a full percentage point.

Trump’s job approval

President Trump’s approval rating among U.S. adults has improved slightly from his all-time low last week. An average of 36.9 percent approve of the president this week, while 59.4 percent say they disapprove.

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The second Trump administration has been beleaguered in recent months with accusations of corruption. News about President Donald Trump’s stock trades, contracts for companies in which his family members have a personal stake, and his deal with the Department of Justice to drop tax audits of himself and his family and create an “anti-weaponization fund” (which is rumored to give money to people who participated in the riots on January 6, 2021), among other things, seem to have increased in volume. Of course, none of this is new for the president: he famously launched a memecoin days before his inauguration, which quickly shot up in price to $44 (that coin now trades for $1.90).

With the drumbeat of these stories in the background, how are Americans feeling about corruption in the government? Today on The Trendline, we’re taking a look at how Americans feel about ethics and corruption in government, and how much trust they have in key institutions more broadly.

While stories about alleged corruption in the federal government may be more frequent than in the past, voters already believe politicians are corrupt. In an October 2025 survey from Tavern Research/The Searchlight Institute, 71 percent of respondents said that a typical politician is likely to be corrupt, while just 16 percent said a typical politician is not likely to be corrupt. So while recent stories about corruption may seem extreme, voters already expect politicians to engage in corrupt behavior.

Indeed, in a world where public trust in the government has been eroding for decades, politicians stand out as a particular culprit. In a recent Data for Progress poll (Apr. 17 - 20, 2026), just 27 percent of likely voters said that they trust politicians somewhat or a great deal, while 69 percent said they don’t trust politicians very much or at all, putting politicians underwater on trust by 42 percentage points. For comparison, in the same survey corporations were underwater by 24 points.

When it comes to the president specifically, majorities of Americans say they do not trust Trump at all on key issues facing the nation.

In a YouGov poll conducted in late February/early March, of 21 issues asked, at least 50 percent of respondents had no trust in the president on all but four. In the same survey, 54 percent of respondents said that the word “corrupt” applied “a lot” to Trump, and another 15 percent said it applied “a little.”

Of course, the word “corruption” is vague. In the Tavern Research/Searchlight Institute poll, voters were asked what they mean when they use the word “corruption,” and responses varied. While the most common response was using “public office for personal financial gain,” only 31 percent of voters said that was what they meant by corruption.

And when it comes to using office for personal financial gain specifically, Trump is also underwater. In a YouGov/The Economist poll (May 15 - 18, 2026), 59 percent of respondents said he was using his office for personal gain, while just 30 percent said he wasn’t.

Of course, the problem of low trust in institutions is not isolated to politicians. In an RMG Research/Napolitan News Service poll (May 18 - 19, 2026), voters were asked more generally how often they “trust the federal government to do the right thing.” Only 5 percent said they trust the federal government “just about all of the time,” and 19 percent said they trust the federal government “most of the time.” Another 43 percent said “only some of the time,” and 31 percent said “rarely or never.”

This distrust also extends to agencies of the federal government and other institutions in American life. In an Atlas Intel poll (May 4 - 7, 2026), majorities of Americans said they had little or no trust in ICE, the FBI, universities, mainstream media, the Supreme Court, Congress, and tech companies. The only institution Americans have net positive trust for is “local law enforcement” — at a not-great-but-not-terrible +18.

Taken all together, it’s no surprise that this high level of distrust also coincides with dissatisfaction with American democracy. In a University of Maryland survey (Mar. 11 - 19, 2026), 78 percent of respondents said that the government in DC is “run by a few big interests looking out for themselves,” while just 22 percent said it was “run for the benefit of all the people.” In a Navigator Research poll (May 13 - 16, 2026), 75 percent of respondents said American democracy is completely or somewhat broken.

Despite all this low trust and pessimism, though, Americans are at least somewhat optimistic that things could change. In the University of Maryland poll, 62 percent said that members of congress often or almost always “put a higher priority on serving the interests of organizations and individuals who have donated money to their election, rather than serving the good of the country.” But in the very next question, a slim majority (52 percent) said that “over the next decades” it is somewhat or very likely that “leaders in the US government will serve the common good of the people more than they do now.”

Rather than indicating pure optimism, however, perhaps these numbers also reflect how poorly Americans view the current system: when you’re at rock bottom, there’s nowhere to go but up.

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Other polling nuggets

• As the country nears its 250th birthday, a University of Maryland Program for Public Consultation survey (Mar. 11 - 19, 2026) found that 63 percent of Americans believe the Founders would say today’s government is doing a poor job of fulfilling their vision, including half of Republicans. After weighing arguments on both sides, an overwhelming 85 percent — including 86 percent of both Republicans and Democrats — said they’d favor having elected leaders regularly consult representative samples of the public on policy, and 78 percent said the Founders would approve.

• The 2028 shadow primaries are underway, and the betting favorites have work to do, according to a new Overton Insights poll (May 16 - 20, 2026): Vice President JD Vance leads the GOP field at 39 percent but loses one-on-one to Marco Rubio (42 to 36 percent), while Pete Buttigieg leads a scattered Democratic field at 16 percent and AOC tops Gavin Newsom head-to-head. The same survey put Trump’s approval at just 32 percent — and found that 54 percent of Democrats believe the recent attempts on his life were staged.

• Americans doubt Washington will keep AI in check: in a CBS News/YouGov poll (May 13 - 15, 2026), two-thirds said U.S. government policy probably or certainly will not ensure AI is used appropriately, a view shared across age and education groups and by both Democrats and independents (Republicans were split). Asked why AI companies push the technology, big majorities cited self-interested motives like accruing power and replacing workers, and a majority expected AI to cost the U.S. jobs.

• In perhaps the week’s most consequential polling, YouGov asked 6,882 Americans how they put on their shoes (May 27, 2026). Sixty-four percent say they do so sitting down, whereas 32 percent get ready standing up, and 4 percent weren’t sure. But the same respondents also reported that 66 percent usually wear laced shoes — and since only 64 percent sit, at least 2 percent of Americans are out there lacing up without sitting down to tie their shoes. We salute them; they must be very flexible, or absolutely destroying the tabs behind their ankles (we are pollsters, we don’t know what that’s called).

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Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 12:00 PM Eastern on May 29, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

The Democratic margin in the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot rounded up to 7 points for the first time this week (we also switched our model over from modeling the population of registered to likely voters this week). At writing, 49.1 percent of likely voters saying they’ll cast their ballot for Democrats this fall versus 42.4 percent for the Republicans. The Democratic margin is being driven both by higher-than-average partisan loyalty among Democrats and defection among Republicans, we report.

Trump’s job approval

President Trump’s approval rating among U.S. adults hovered around his all-time low of 36.5 percent in our average this week, while 59.8 percent say they disapprove.

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In the last few weeks, Democrats have significantly improved their standing in generic ballot polls. On May 1, 2026, according to our average of polls here at FiftyPlusOne, the Democratic party had a lead of around 4.5 percentage points in the generic ballot; by May 26, that lead had expanded to almost 6 percentage points.1

For the first time this cycle, Democrats now lead the generic ballot by slightly more than they did at the same point in the 2018 election cycle, and by far more than the Republicans led at the same time in 2022. And generally, in most cycles in recent history, the party out of power grows their lead during the final months of the campaign (note that the Dobbs decision to overturn Roe v. Wade 137 days prior to the election disrupted this pattern somewhat in 2022, though Republicans gained about 3 points in the final month of that campaign).

As we often do here at 50+1, we went diving into the survey crosstabs to figure out why the Democrats have been gaining ground in the last few months. It turns out that the recent shift in the race is being driven, at least in part, by how partisans plan to vote in November (rather than how political independents say they’ll vote — which is also boosting Democrats today).

Democrats are benefiting from rising loyalty from their voters — and falling loyalty among the GOP’s

In particular, if we consider the percent of Democrats and Republicans that say they plan to vote for a candidate for Congress representing their own party, we see a fairly similar looking trend as in the topline average.

Today, nearly 96 percent of Democrats say they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate in November, and that number has been growing in recent months; in July 2025, it was 94 percent. Among Republicans, however, the percent who plan to vote for a candidate of their own party has spent the cycle hovering around 91 percent, and despite a brief surge in April has been falling since around the beginning of the month, from a cycle high of 91.9 percent on May 5 to 90.6 percent on May 26, near the cycle low of 90.4 percent.

Of course, a drop of 1.2 percentage points isn’t really all that much, in the grand scheme of things. It’s the kind of shift that may be coincidental, and could quite possibly revert as time goes on. But small changes also add up; Democrats in recent elections are about 45 percent of all voters, so increasing party loyalty by, e.g., 2 percent contributes 2 * 0.45 = 0.9 points to their share of the vote — or nearly 2 points on margin. Movement by 1.5 points in the other direction among Republicans corresponds to another 1-1.5 points for Democrats (2-3 points on margin).

Putting this data into historical context also shows some marked differences between 2026 and the last few midterm cycles. This is where our story gets pretty interesting.

When we compare 2026 polling to the last two midterm cycles, we can clearly see that 2026 Democrats are the most loyal party, by far, in recent midterm history. As of today, a larger percentage of Democrats say they plan to vote for a candidate of their own party than either Democrats or Republicans have ever said in any of the last three midterm cycles. And from this point forward, the parties tend to grow their loyalty, as perhaps reluctant partisans “come home” as the vote gets nearer — so conditions may get even more favorable for the opposition party. On the other hand, with numbers this high, it’s possible that the Democratic party is close to being maxed out with its own voters.

Republicans, on the other hand, look more like a typical midterm cycle, if a bit on the high side. Party loyalty across all three cycles generally hovers in the mid 80s to low 90s, with partisans really consolidating around the candidate of their own party in the final 100 or so days of the cycle, which so far seems to be about where 2026 Republicans stand. And Republicans this cycle are much more loyal to their party than Republicans in 2018 were, during the first Trump presidency. One warning sign for the GOP may be the general flat or negative trend for the GOP today, where loyalty in previous cycles had tended to begin trending up by now.

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Republicans are also more likely to defect in 2026 than in-party voters in 2018, 2022

In addition to this slightly higher-than-usual loyalty rate among Republicans, we see another trend in this cycle’s data: a slightly higher-than-usual defection rate among Republicans, too. (This is possible because there is a reduction in the percentage of respondents saying they “don’t know” how they’d vote, or that they wouldn’t vote at all.)

Currently, nearly 6 percent of Republicans say they plan to vote for a Democratic candidate for the House in November — about 2 points higher than the average number of partisans who planned to defect at this point in the previous two cycles — while Democratic defections are historically low. As of May 26, the percentage of Democratic defectors is lower than at any point in either of the last two cycles among any party.

In the previous two midterms, we see the defection rate generally highest among voters whose party holds the presidency; as of now, 2026 exceeds both 2018 and 2022 in defection among presidential co-partisans (though not by very much), but it hasn’t been consistently higher than those previous midterms this cycle. As with party loyalty, defections tend to grow in the last 100 days of the cycle, especially among the party that controls the presidency. In 2018 and 2022, polls among the party in power showed an average of 6 percent defection on the day of the election; the GOP today is nearly already at that point.

In addition, unlike in previous cycles, the higher number of Republicans planning to defect from their party than Democrats has been consistent throughout the 2026 polling. In both 2018 and 2022, by this time in the cycle, the number of partisan defections on each side had more or less begun to even out. But this year, the difference has stayed more or less the same, around 3 percent, throughout the campaign. Republican voters are not “coming home” yet.

Changes in party identification could be a part of increasing party loyalty

Of course, there are some important caveats to all of this data. The first will be familiar: anytime we are using poll crosstabs to do analysis of subsegments of the electorate, you should consider our estimates as more uncertain than when we’re dealing with toplines. Crosstabs are noisy, polling is imperfect, and you should look askance at small differences in single polls (or even several!). However, broad trends generally are worth noting, such as the especially high Democratic loyalty in 2026, and the especially low Republican loyalty in 2018.

But there’s even more to be thinking about here, which is how exactly we define “Democrat” and “Republican.” Different pollsters will do this in different ways: by asking voters about their party, by using partisan voter registration (where available), by some combination of these data, or by modeling party ID in cases where it isn’t known. Online panels might store a party ID for their respondents, which they update from time to time by asking the respondent to fill out their demographic data again.

It’s also worth acknowledging that these are not necessarily the same people across elections. Because pollsters measure party identification by asking respondents which party they feel closer to, parties can lose (or gain) identifiers over time — like when their party leader is very unpopular. There’s possibly a significant contingent of voters that would have called themselves (or been registered as) Republicans in 2018 that would not claim that label in 2026, and vice versa. What looks to be an unusually high loyalty rate among 2026 Republicans, compared to previous years’ loyalty among members of the president’s party, could just be a difference in the types of people that call themselves Republicans.

The numbers among Democrats, both in defections and loyalty, also raise plenty of questions about whether the types of voters that identify as Democrats have shifted over the course of the last 8 years. As voters increasingly express dissatisfaction with the party, it’s possible that only the most dedicated partisans are still identifying themselves (or registering) as Democrats, among whom you would expect to see extremely high loyalty and low defections. Indeed, according to Gallup, identification as either a Republican or a Democrat has been on the decline, while identification as an independent recently hit a new high of 45 percent.

Fundamentally, what it all boils down to is this: If people who called themselves Republicans in early 2025 no longer approve of Donald Trump, they may also no longer want to call themselves Republicans. This would leave behind a smaller group of Republican identifiers that were fiercely loyal to the president — while increasing the pool of anti-Trump Democratic and independent voters. Likewise, if people who called themselves Democrats in late 2024 are angry with what they see as mismanagement of the presidential election and its aftermath by party elites, they may no longer want to call themselves Democrats, and those that remain would have much higher party loyalty than those that left.

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Despite the many proclamations of doom for the Democratic Party (mostly stemming from the party’s low favorability rating), it appears that folks that currently identify as Democrats are much more united than partisans have been in the recent past. And Republicans, paradoxically, appear both a bit more loyal and a bit less loyal than in previous midterm cycles, perhaps a hint of the underlying fault lines in the party that have yet to truly become an earthquake.

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Methodology

To estimate demographic subgroup trends for the generic congressional ballot, we use an exponentially weighted moving average (EWMA) that adjusts polls for their sample size, recency, subgroup noise, population and pollster effects, and movement in the national generic ballot since each poll was conducted.

We calculate this average in six steps. For any given day, we look at the polls conducted for a subgroup on or before that day, and do the following:

1. First, each poll’s Democratic and Republican vote shares are de-trended by subtracting the corresponding national topline estimate on the poll’s end date, isolating each subgroup’s deviation (aka residual) from the national environment on that day. If the national average for the Democrats is 45% and the subgroup is 50%, for example, we record the subgroup residual as +5.

2. Second, we calculate a EWMA with a decay rate of 0.96 (roughly a 17-day half-life) on the de-trended values from all polls for this subgroup. Then we add back the national topline to produce trend-adjusted subgroup estimates. This ensures our average accounts both for movement in the national trend and a subgroup’s overall lean toward one party.

3. Third, we compute house effects for each pollster in each subgroup based on how much their polls differ from the average. Each firm’s house effect is equal to the average difference between their results and the trendline-adjusted national average on the day the pollster released their results. We then shrink the house effect toward zero to account for noisy residuals, via the formula adjusted = raw_effect * n / (n + 5), where n = the number of polls from a pollster among that subgroup. So a pollster with 1 poll keeps 1/6 (~17%) of their estimated bias. With 5 polls it’s 50%, with 10 polls it’s 67%, etc. This ensures that when we have relatively few results from a given pollster, we aren’t overconfident in their house effects.

4. Fourth, we subtract each pollster’s house effect from their results, and then calculate a new aggregate estimate that adjusts for house effects and movement in the national generic ballot average. We do this by repeating steps 1 and 2 above, but using the house-effect-adjusted poll results instead of the raw results. Fifth, we estimate “population” effects for polls of likely voters, registered voters, and all adults to control for systematic deviations in results due to the types of voters pollsters sample. In horse race contexts (like the generic ballot), we want out average to capture vote intention among likely voters so we can make characterizations about the electorate and likely political outcomes. This adjustment works similarly to the house effect adjustment explained in steps 3 and 4 above, except we group polls by the population each surveyed instead of the survey firm responsible for each survey. Once we have estimated residuals for each group, we subtract those values for polls of all adults and registered voters to estimate what they would have shown if they had been conducted among the LV population. We run those polls through our average a final time, and that gives us a final EWMA for each party in demographic group!

5. The final step is to blend this EWMA with a model-based prediction of each party’s vote share that is used to smooth out phantom swings in the average that result from noisy data. The modeled prior for each subgroup is simply the national topline plus that group’s average historical offset from the national topline — giving us a stable estimate of where the group “should” be on any given day based on the overall national environment.
   
   The amount of weight assigned to the modeled prior vs EWMA depends on the cumulative information provided by the polls for each subgroup: groups with many recent, large-sample polls that consistently agree with each other will be driven almost entirely by the EWMA, while groups with few, small, or noisy polls will lean heavily on the modeled prior. This effective weight also incorporates a reliability score for each subgroup, estimated by comparing the variance of that group’s de-trended poll results to the median variance across all groups. Subgroups whose polls are noisy and inconsistent accumulate effective weight more slowly, keeping them closer to the modeled prior even when poll counts are similar to more stable groups.

The final average we report for each group is thus equal to an average of the EWMA for that group and the modeled estimate, using the following formulas:

w = eff_weight / (eff_weight + 20)

and

final = w * EWMA + (1 - w) * model_prior

Where eff_weight is the cumulative sum of decayed poll weights (each poll’s sqrt(sample_size) * reliability, decayed by 0.96 per day since the poll was conducted). So at eff_weight = 20, it’s a 50/50 blend. At eff_weight = 60, it’s 75% EWMA. A brand new group with one small poll might have eff_weight around 5, giving ~20% EWMA and ~80% prior.

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Footnotes

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In the last few days, the Trump administration has released intelligence that could serve as a justification for some form of military intervention in Cuba. Axios reported that the Cuban government was considering preemptive drone strikes against the United States. The Department of Justice has issued an indictment for former Cuban president Raúl Castro related to events that happened 30 years ago, which could serve as a pretext for a military operation similar to the one that removed Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela. Secretary of State Marco Rubio called the island a national security threat.

So, what do Americans actually think about Cuba, and military interventions more generally? This week on The Trendline, we dig into the polls to find out how the public is feeling about America’s relationship with the world, and in particular, our island neighbor.

Polls are mixed on how Americans think about our actions on the world stage. According to a Siena University/The New York Times poll (May 11 - 15, 2026), 54 percent of registered voters said they agreed more that we “should pay less attention to problems overseas and concentrate more on problems here at home,” while 41 percent said they agreed more that it’s “best for the future of our country to be active in world affairs in order to maintain American security and prosperity.”

Democrats and independents were more likely to say America should focus more attention here at home: 56 percent of Democrats and 59 percent of independents said they agreed more with the first statement. But 52 percent of Republicans said they agreed more with the second statement (probably because their party is currently in charge of foreign policy).

This question, however, might overstate support for American isolationism. The wording provides a lot of information to respondents: phrases like “concentrate on problems here at home” and “American security and prosperity” can serve as nudges to poll takers, particularly in a charged partisan environment. A simpler version of the question, asked by YouGov/The Economist (May 15 - 18, 2026) gets very different responses.

Asked if the U.S. should “take an active part in world affairs or stay out of world affairs,” 47 percent of Americans preferred the U.S. taking an active part, while 31 percent said the U.S. should stay out. And in this version of the question, majorities of both Democrats and Republicans agreed with the active role (52 and 57 percent, respectively). Only independents preferred the U.S. staying out of world affairs, with 37 percent taking the isolationist position and 35 percent saying the U.S. should be active.

When it comes to foreign military interventions specifically, polling generally shows opposition. In a different YouGov survey (May 15 - 18, 2026), 43 percent of Americans said that U.S. foreign military interventions more often worsen situations in the countries where they occur, while just 19 percent said they improve the situation on the ground, consistent with previous polling on the topic. And in a YouGov/The Economist poll from late March, 54 percent of Americans said the U.S. should use military force less often than we do now, while just 5 percent said we should use military force more often (another 28 percent said that we should use force as often as we do now, and 13 percent were unsure).

Against that backdrop, it’s perhaps unsurprising that pursuit of regime change in Cuba isn’t particularly popular. According to a poll from Change Research, among those that are following the news about Cuba (about 66 percent of respondents), just 39 percent said they supported regime change in Cuba, while 51 percent were opposed. This is notable, as those that are following the news are perhaps more likely to have strong feelings about Cuba and the Cuban government.

When poll questions directly mention military involvement, the numbers get much worse for the pro-regime change side. In the March YouGov/The Economist poll, just 22 percent of Americans said they supported using military force to overthrow the government in Cuba, while 55 percent were opposed (23 percent said they weren’t sure).

In a January survey from Ipsos/The Chicago Council on Global Affairs, Americans were generally unsupportive of the use of military force to make political change in other countries, including Cuba, though were more supportive of using force to protect our allies.

Seventy-eight percent of Americans said they opposed the use of U.S. troops to overthrow the Cuban government in particular. And 70 percent said it is generally unacceptable to use military force to change the political leadership of another country.

Outside of military intervention, though, views on Cuba are a bit more muddled. In the YouGov poll, just 9 percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of the Cuban government, while 60 percent had an unfavorable opinion. But even given this distaste for the government of Cuba, 65 percent said they had a favorable opinion of the Cuban people, while 9 percent viewed the population unfavorably.

As to the potential justifications of military intervention based on Cuba’s potentially being a national security threat, only 5 percent said they thought Cuba was “an immediate and serious threat to the U.S.,” so that probably won’t hold water with the public. And many Americans think we should be a bit nicer to Cuba: 41 percent said the U.S. treats Cuba too harshly, compared to 11 percent who said the U.S. is too lenient (another 22 percent said our treatment of Cuba is about right, and 26 percent were undecided). In addition, 57 percent said they would approve of the U.S. having diplomatic relations with the nation, while just 11 percent would disapprove.

In the March YouGov/The Economist poll, voters didn’t seem quite sure of what to make of our current actions in Cuba. Asked if they supported the oil blockade on the island, 24 percent said they did, 38 percent said they didn’t, and 38 percent said they weren’t sure. In a March poll from Harris/Harvard CAPS, voters were asked about a variety of policy approaches related to Cuba; the most popular approaches were to pursue diplomatic negotiations (27 percent support) and provide humanitarian aid to the Cuban people (26 percent support). Only 16 percent said the U.S. should consider military options if the situation worsens.

Still, the Trump administration may have some important backing for action against Cuba: Cuban Americans. In an April poll of South Florida Cuban Americans from The Tarrance Group/Bendixen & Amandi International/The Miami Herald, 79 percent said that they supported some form of military intervention in Cuba. And in a March poll of Latino voters by Florida International University/The Latino Public Opinion Forum, Latinos of Cuban origin stood out as particularly supportive of Trump and the Republican party: 53 percent of Cubans approved of Trump, compared to a 31 percent approval rating among Latinos overall. And of all national origins in the poll, Cubans were the only group who showed a Republican advantage on the generic ballot

Taken all together, polling suggests that the public overall probably prefers a Cuba approach closer to that of former President Barack Obama: normalizing diplomatic relations and increasing cooperation with the nation, rather than the approach taken by both Trump and former President Joe Biden of hostility and sanctions. It appears, for now, they will not get their wish.

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Other polling nuggets

• According to Gallup (May 1 - 17, 2026), Americans across the political spectrum are souring on the economy. The Gallup economic confidence index has dropped to -45, the lowest level since the inflation crisis in Summer 2022. Just 16 percent of Americans rate economic conditions as excellent or good, while 49 percent rate them as poor and 34 percent as “only fair.” Worsening opinions about the economy cross political lines: Republicans’ economic confidence has dropped from a second Trump term high of +68 in August 2025 to +22 now. In the same time frame, independents’ confidence dropped from -35 to -58, and Democrats’ confidence dropped from -70 to -80. As further evidence of increasing bipartisan pessimism about the economy, in an AP-NORC poll (May 14 - 18, 2026), Trump’s approval rating on the economy has fallen to 63 percent among Republicans, down from a high of 79 percent in February, just prior to the Iran war.

• According to a survey from Siena University/The New York Times (May 11 - 15, 2026), Democrats are frustrated with their own party. Among potential Democratic voters, 45 percent said they were satisfied with the Democratic Party, while 53 percent were dissatisfied. Seventy-five percent said the Democratic Party should reposition, with 47 percent saying it should move to the center and 28 percent saying it should move to the left; just 19 percent said they thought it should not move in either direction. Still, these frustrations don’t seem to be bleeding into voters’ plans for November. Despite their dissatisfaction with the party writ large, 95 percent of these voters said they plan to vote for the Democratic candidate in November, and less than 1 percent said they would support the Republican. And though the Republican Party has advantages in terms of satisfaction among its own voters (68 percent of Republican voters are satisfied with the Republican Party), Democrats seem a bit more enthusiastic about November: 47 percent said they are “almost certain” to vote, compared with 41 percent among Republicans.

• According to Quinnipiac University (May 14 - 18, 2026), 36 percent of Americans believe that the Pentagon’s newly released UFO files show evidence of intelligent life on other planets. Forty-two percent don’t believe the files are evidence of aliens, and 22 percent aren’t sure. The most skeptical group is Republicans, 50 percent of whom say that the files do not show evidence of alien intelligence, while 31 percent believe they do. Independents are most likely to express belief, with 38 percent believing there’s evidence of alien life, and 38 percent disbelieving.

Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 11:00 AM Eastern on May 22, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

After months of hovering around a 5-point lead, the Democrats have grown their margin on the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot to +6 this week. At writing, 47.4 percent of registered voters saying they’ll cast their ballot for Democrats this fall — similar to the 47.2 percent we reported in our last newsletter — versus 41.5 percent for the Republicans.

Trump’s job approval

President Trump’s approval rating among U.S. adults hit a new all-time low of 36.5 percent in our average this week, while the percent saying they disapprove rose to 60.2 percent for the first time. The net rating – rounding down on our site for the first time to -24 – is also a new low.

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On Thursday, April 30, Maine Governor Janet Mills ended her bid for the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate, leaving Graham Platner — a 41-year-old oyster farmer, Marine Corps veteran, and progressive newcomer — as the all-but-certain Democratic nominee against Republican Senator Susan Collins this fall. Mills, who is 78, had entered the race in October with the backing of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a head start in name recognition, and a pitch built around her record as a two-term governor in a swing state.

By April, multiple polls had Mills trailing badly. A late-March Emerson College survey put Platner up 55 to 28 percent. A University of New Hampshire poll in February had him up 64 to 26. Her late-stage attack ads, focused on Platner’s old social media posts, didn’t move the polls. Given these numbers, as well as a significant fundraising deficit, her exit wasn’t really a surprise.

Despite his baggage (Platner recently had a tattoo common among Neo-Nazis covered up, and made misogynistic and racist remarks in old social media posts), plenty of factors boosted Platner. He is an effective fundraiser, credibly makes an anti-establishment case that is popular among both the progressive left and MAGA right, and scored big early endorsements from high-profile U.S. Senators including Vermont’s Bernie Sanders. But one other factor may have been the most important: Platner is young, while Mills is old. The race became, as Platner framed it, a contest between old and new ideas. And when it comes to age, Americans overwhelmingly favor the new.

In a new Marist University/NPR/PBS News poll conducted late April, 8 in 10 Americans said they support both maximum age limits and term limits for members of Congress. The agreement crosses party lines, with 78 percent of Democrats backing both ideas, and between 80 and 90 percent of Republicans favoring age caps and term limits. Older voters were also about as likely to favor age caps as younger ones.

This survey echoed findings from a Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted earlier this year. In that survey, 89 percent of U.S. adults agreed that members of Congress should have term limits, and 85 percent said they should face a mandatory retirement age. Seventy-nine percent agreed with the broader statement that elected officials in Washington are too old to represent most Americans, including 76 percent of Republicans and 86 percent of Democrats.

But in that poll, Americans favored age limits not just for members of Congress, but every federal office. Seventy-one percent of adults favored an age limit for president, including 81 percent of Democrats and 64 percent of Republicans. Support for age limits for House and Senate members is roughly the same. And regarding the Supreme Court — from which justices retire on average well into their 80s — 68 percent of Americans favor age limits.

When it comes to winning elections, the sweet spot may be younger than you think. A YouGov poll (March 27 - 30, 2026) found a plurality of adults say the age at which Congresspeople “are generally best able to fulfill the duties of serving” is between 40 and 49. Zero percent of respondents said the ideal age for a member of Congress is above 70, and 80 percent said 75 years is “too old” to run.

YouGov also asked which prominent figures in government respondents thought were too old to do the job. Joe Biden topped the list at 82 percent, but a majority said the same thing about Donald Trump (57 percent) and Bernie Sanders (also 57 percent).

Mills’ effective defeat in the Maine Democratic primary for Senate shows how toxic age has become in modern politics. Given the choice between a younger and older candidate, YouGov’s poll found, 46 percent of Americans chose young and only 11 percent chose old. Platner now heads to a general election against incumbent Republican Senator Susan Collins, who at 73 is seeking a sixth term in Washington. She will have to head off the same attacks that sank the current governor.

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Other polling nuggets

• Last week, King Charles III made a state visit to the United States, an occasion met with much pomp and circumstance (and media coverage). Americans, however, don’t seem much to care: In an Ipsos poll (May 1 - 3, 2026), just 25 percent said they had been following the story very or somewhat closely. For comparison, 74 percent said they were following stories about gas prices and the cost of living, and 46 percent said they were following stories about redistricting. And when it comes to the U.S.-British relationship, Americans appear to be moving away from the United Kingdom. In May 2024, 48 percent told Ipsos that they agreed there is a “special relationship” between the two nations. That number is down to 34 percent in the most recent survey — and the number who disagree has risen from 5 to 13 percent (the rest either neither agree nor disagree or are unsure).

• Americans are split on the recent Supreme Court ruling that changed its interpretation of Section II of the Voting Rights Act, according to a survey by YouGov Blue/The Downballot (Apr. 30 - May 4, 2026). Given a description of the case and outcome, 34 percent said they generally agreed with the ruling, 46 percent said they generally disagreed, 12 percent said they neither agreed nor disagreed, and another 7 percent said they weren’t sure. Asked whether the Voting Rights Act was still needed to protect against racial discrimination in elections, a majority (55 percent) said yes, 31 percent said no, and 14 percent were undecided.

• Voters are not happy with Trump’s foreign policy decisions, according to a recent Marist University/NPR/PBS News poll (Apr. 27 - 30, 2026). Sixty-two percent of registered voters told the pollster that Trump’s decisions as president had weakened the United States’ role on the world stage, while 38 percent said his decisions had strengthened it. Among Democrats, 94 percent said his decisions had weakened the U.S.’ standing; 67 percent of independents and 22 percent of Republicans agreed.

• Forty percent of Americans say the biggest sin of their countrymen is greed, according to new YouGov polling (May 7, 2026). Asked which of the Seven Deadly Sins (a Catholic concept dating back to the 4th century) Americans commit the most, 40 percent said greed, far more than the next highest responses of gluttony (11 percent), lust (9 percent), and pride and envy (tied at 8 percent). When it comes to their own sins, though, Americans are far less likely to confess: just 5 percent said the sin they commit the most is greed, behind pride and lust (tied at 12 percent) and envy and sloth (tied at 10 percent).

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Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 10:00 AM Eastern on May 8, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

Democrats have held their lead on the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot at +5 (after rounding) over the last week, with 47.4 percent of registered voters saying they’ll cast their ballot for Democrats this fall versus 42.1 percent for the Republicans.

Trump’s job approval

President Trump’s approval rating among U.S. adults held steady at an all time low of 36.7 percent this week, while the percent of Americans who disapprove of the job he is doing rose within the margin of error to 59.5 percent.

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Throughout the early spring this year, there was a persistent worry among Democrats that they could get “locked out” of the California gubernatorial election. California is one of only three states that run all-party primaries, in which candidates of all parties run on the same primary ballot, and some number of the top candidates move on to a runoff election in November (the other two are Alaska and Washington). In California, only two candidates make it through to the general election, and until the end of March, the two leading candidates in polling were Republicans Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco.

But things have changed since March. We’ve seen President Donald Trump endorse one of the top two Republicans, more than one Democratic drop out, and significant changes in the polls. As of early May, it now looks like the Democrats could actually lock the Republicans out of the November runoff, rather than the other way around.

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Before we get into that, let’s take a look at what the problem was for Democrats in the first place. When the race got underway, too many Democratic candidates in the race were splitting up the Democratic vote, with no one candidate able to gain an advantage. Indeed, there will be 24 Democrats on the primary ballot in June, but just 12 Republicans (and an additional 25 candidates with either no party preference or another party affiliation).

Of those candidates, pollsters identified roughly eight Democrats that they generally include in their polls as plausible candidates, but just two Republicans. Through the end of March, both of those Republicans were polling in double digits, while three Democrats were, and the other five Democrats were consistently peeling off low single-digits.

But as April got underway, things began to shift. On Monday, April 6, Trump endorsed Hilton. Some Democrats speculated that this would lead to a consolidation in the Republican vote in the race, and while Hilton has gained a few points in the polls since then, Bianco hasn’t really budged. On April 4, our polling average showed Hilton with 16.8 percent and Bianco with 13.6 percent; As of 6:00 PM Eastern on May 6, 2026,, those candidates are polling at 18.4 percent and 13.2 percent, respectively.

Then, amid a flurry of scandal, top-polling Democrat Eric Swalwell dropped out of the race on April 13. At the time, he had been the highest polling Democrat, at 14.3 percent, trailed closely by Tom Steyer at 14 percent. His exit seems to have redounded primarily to the benefit of Xavier Becerra, who shot up from 3.9 percent on April 13 to 14.6 percent today. Steyer, who had already been steadily climbing in the polls since early March, has also picked up a point, and now sits at 15 percent.

Hilton continues to lead the top two Democrats by 3-4 points, with Bianco trailing them by 1-2 points.

Alright, so if Hilton is still leading, you might ask me: why would you think the Democrats could lock the Republicans out? Wouldn’t you expect the polling leader to win?

Well, yes and no. As we’ve written in the past, primary polling is notoriously hard, so there’s reason to exercise caution, especially when the polling lead is only a couple of points. But there are two reasons to think that the top two Democratic candidates could continue to rise between now and the June primary, surpassing Hilton and locking the GOP out of the runoff in November.

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Reason #1: More Democrats are still on the fence.

Generally speaking, it’s fair to assume that statewide, California is split roughly 60-40, with about 60 percent of votes going to Democrats and 40 percent to Republicans in recent elections. So if we expect that 60 percent of the votes in the primary will go to Democrats and 40 percent to Republicans, we can get a back-of-the-envelope calculation for how many voters from each party still haven’t made up their minds. On average, in polls conducted since Swalwell’s exit, 49 percent of the vote is going to Democrats, and 32 percent to Republicans.1 In our 60-40 universe, that means there’s still 11 percent of the electorate we would expect to choose a Democrat, and 8 percent we would expect to choose a Republican.

Of course, that three point difference between Democrats on the fence and Republicans on the fence doesn’t seem like very much. But again, the polling leader in this race is only leading by three percentage points to begin with, so we’re dealing with pretty thin margins already.

More importantly, the voters who show up for the primary election in June may be more Democratic than the usual 60-40 split among the general electorate.

In the redistricting referendum in California last December, the Democratic-aligned “Yes” side won 64-36. In other primaries that have been held so far in 2026, Democrats have turned out in much larger numbers than we’ve seen in previous primaries. For example, in the Ohio primary in 2022, Republicans were ahead of Democrats more than two-to-one in turnout in the Senate race, with over 1 million GOP voters and just over 500,000 Democrats. But in the primary in Ohio this week, Republicans appear to have barely led Democrats in turnout: just over 800,000 Republicans voted, and just under 800,000 Democrats did (note: these results are not yet final).

So let’s revisit the on-the-fence numbers with this in mind. If Democrats have a slightly higher than usual turnout advantage in June, say, 63-37 rather than 60-40, then an average of 14 percent of voters that currently have not chosen a candidate would likely choose a Democrat, while just 5 percent would be expected to choose a Republican. If Becerra and Steyer each get 5 percent of those Democratic fence-sitters (and the remaining 4 percent split between the other Democrats), while Hilton and Bianco split their 5 percent equally, that’s enough to push the topline into a 3-way tie. Any additional turnout advantage makes it even likelier for the two top Democrats to push ahead of Hilton.

Reason #2: Voters like voting for winners.

As we’ve seen Steyer and Becerra rise in the wake of Swalwell’s departure, we’ve seen another phenomenon begin to emerge in the polls: Democrat Katie Porter’s slow decline.

While Porter hasn’t collapsed, her vote share has been steadily ticking down in the polling average since late April. On April 13, Porter’s average was 9.8 percent; after Swalwell’s exit she ticked up a bit to 10.4 throughout mid-April, and has slowly been dropping ever since. Her current polling average is 9.2 percent, about half a point lower than where she was when Swalwell dropped out.

Now, this decline isn’t all that significant. One could argue that it’s all margin of error stuff, and I’m sensitive to that argument. But the fact that it’s been consistent in one direction for several weeks doesn’t bode well for her candidacy. And it could be the beginning of what we commonly see in these sorts of multi-candidate races: voters consolidating toward the end of the race around candidates they view as having the potential to win.

While not a primary, one very clear example of this phenomenon can be seen in the Oregon gubernatorial race in 2022. That race featured three candidates: Democrat Tina Kotek, Republican Christine Drazan, and independent former Democrat Betsy Johnson. In the early stages of the race, particularly in September 2022, there was significant fretting among Democrats that Johnson’s presence in the race could cost them the seat in November; Johnson was consistently polling in the high teens and low twenties throughout September. As a former Democrat, much of that vote share was pulling from Kotek, and Drazan held a polling lead throughout that period.

But then, October hit. Voters started to get serious about choosing their candidates. And almost immediately, Johnson’s poll numbers began to crash. By November, she was polling in the single digits, and Kotek had taken the lead over Drazan in the average. Ultimately, Johnson earned 8.6 percent of the vote in the election, less than half of where she’d been polling in September.

Well, the time has come in California. We’re about one month out from the primary, and voters are starting to get serious about choosing their candidates. This could mean that as the last month goes on, voters who have been telling pollsters they plan to vote for lower-polling Democratic candidates like Porter or Democrat Matt Mahan may go the way of Betsy Johnson voters in Oregon, and shift their support to one of the top two polling candidates. On average, 20 percent of voters say they plan to vote for a Democrat other than Becerra or Steyer; if half of these switch to one of the two Democratic leaders, that’s another 10 percent of the votes to split between the two.

Ultimately, nobody knows what will happen in California in June. With 61 candidates on the ballot and five candidates polling at 9 percent or above, there’s a lot of fluidity still in this race. But there’s an outside chance that the combination of turnout advantages and consolidation could push Hilton off the November ballot. At this point, Republicans getting locked out seems more likely than Democrats missing the November ballot.

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Footnotes

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It’s budget season again on Capitol Hill, and members of congress have been spending the last few weeks debating a variety of proposals, including ending the DHS shutdown and funding ICE (Trump signed a bill to end the shutdown and fund DHS on April 30, 2026), significant increases to the Pentagon’s budget, and big cuts to the EPA, among other things. So this week on The Trendline, we’re checking in on what Americans prioritize for their tax dollars, and how they feel about federal spending overall.

When it comes to some of the proposed spending cuts being considered, it appears that the GOP may be on the wrong side of public opinion. In an RMG Research/Napolitan News Service poll (Apr. 27 - 28, 2026), voters opposed cuts to the Department of Education budget by 30 percentage points (62 percent to 32 percent), and also opposed cuts to the TSA by 36 percentage points (63 percent to 27 percent). As to the Democratic position that funding for ICE should be cut, voters agree by a much smaller margin; 51 percent favor cutting ICE funding, while 44 percent oppose.

And on increases in funding for the Pentagon, Congress may also be out on a limb. Asked in a Verasight/The Argument poll (Apr. 20 - 23, 2026) about several categories of spending, the military was by far the category voters were most likely to say the government spends too much on.

Moreover, in order to pay for the increased spending on the Pentagon, the GOP has been mulling additional cuts to health care, which was already significantly cut in last year’s budget reconciliation bill (officially titled the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act”). Republican leaders say that these cuts are actually intended to target wasteful spending and fraud, while opponents say such fraud is not common, and cuts will hurt Americans, especially Medicaid recipients.

As to what Americans think, it’s a bit more complicated. In the RMG Research/Napolitan News survey, 21 percent of voters said that most federal spending is waste and fraud, and another 44 percent said a lot of it is. Twenty-four percent said that some federal spending is waste and fraud, and only 5 percent said not very much spending is fraudulent. Against that backdrop, it’s possible that Republicans will be able to sell their idea that cuts are really just eliminating fraudulent uses of taxpayer dollars.

On the other hand, as we see in the Verasight/The Argument poll, 67 percent of voters said that the government spends too little on health care, so it may be tough to get the public on board with additional cuts. And possibly more troubling for the GOP: even when you get more specific, their position remains unpopular. In a Data for Progress survey (Apr. 3 - 6, 2026), voters were asked about a variety of specific policies that have been proposed as means to reduce Medicaid spending; all of these were underwater by over 30 percentage points.

In general, the public seems to prioritize programs that directly benefit Americans. Asked in a YouGov/The Economist poll (Apr. 24 - 27, 2026) whether the federal government should increase, decrease, or not change spending levels on a variety of broad priorities, the most favored increases include direct benefit programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, as well as general social welfare programs like veterans’ spending and education.

Of course, this spending debate doesn’t happen in a vacuum. For the first time since World War II, the U.S. federal debt exceeds 100 percent of GDP, according to the Wall Street Journal. And on the face of it, Americans are concerned about the debt and deficit. In a new survey from Global Strategy Group/North Star Opinion Research for the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, 88 percent of voters said they were concerned about the national debt’s impact on interest rates, and 92 percent said they were concerned about the national debt’s impact on inflation. Moreover, 83 percent said that a candidate “having a plan to address the national debt” would be a factor in determining their 2026 support. Sixty-six percent said that they thought the national debt would get worse over the next few years, while just 28 percent said they thought it would get better.

These numbers, of course, sound like a dire warning for politicians as they prepare to advance what may well be another deficit increase. But under the hood, it’s not quite so clear that this is as big of a political problem as the toplines suggest. For starters, the questions about concerns related to inflation and interest rates were preceded in the poll by the following:

As you may know, economists from across the ideological spectrum agree that the rising national debt can increase inflation and interest rates, which makes things like goods, services and transportation more expensive for consumers.

Primed to already believe high debt levels impact inflation and interest rates, respondents gave the expected answers.

As to the federal debt being a factor in voter’s choices in 2026, there’s no doubt that it probably does matter to some voters. Asked in a vacuum whether having a plan to tackle the debt might make a difference, it’s quite easy for respondents to say yes. But in truth, government spending generally doesn’t top the list of priorities for most Americans. In YouGov/The Economist polls over the last few years, when asked which is the most important issue, the issues of “taxes and government spending” has never exceeded 10 percent of respondents, about the same number as say that national security and foreign policy is their top issue. Dominating voters’ concerns in that time period: inflation and prices (though “civil rights and civil liberties” also had a bit of a moment in the summer and fall of 2025).

Finally, on the poll result showing 66 percent said that they thought the national debt would get worse over the next few years: this is more or less the same as the percentage of respondents who have saying this for over a decade. The Peter G. Peterson Foundation, a nonprofit organization that advocates for federal debt reduction, has been conducting monthly surveys stretching back to late 2012, including this most recent April poll. In those surveys, an average of 29 percent of respondents have said they expect the debt to get better over the next few years, while 61 percent said they expect it to get worse. That’s not too different from the 28-66 spread in the latest survey. In fact, only one thing seems to have moved opinion on this in the decade-plus of data: Donald Trump being elected.

To be clear, such optimism was short-lived on both occasions. After both the 2016 and 2024 elections, the survey briefly showed voters moving to near-parity on the question of whether the debt will get better or worse over the next few years, but voters quickly returned to their general ambient grumpiness about the debt situation. Still, voters may harbor some hope that the right politician might be able to improve the situation sometime in the future. But after two terms of failing to get the budget deficit down — in fact, the president has increased the deficit dramatically in both stints as president — perhaps Americans have learned he’s not the man for this particular job.

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Other polling nuggets

• A new ABC News/Washington Post/Ipsos poll (Apr. 24 - 28, 2026) finds that the public is opposed to President Donald Trump’s planned White House ballroom: 56 percent of Americans oppose tearing down the East Wing to make room for it, while just 28 percent support the project. Strong opposition outweighs strong support by about 3-to-1, and the numbers are essentially unchanged from a poll conducted in October. Voters also oppose Trump’s proposed 250-foot arch near Arlington National Cemetery with 52 percent opposed and just 21 percent in favor, and his idea to add his signature to paper currency was opposed by more than 5-to-1.

• A new KFF Health Tracking poll (Apr. 14 - 19, 2026) finds that the cost of health care continues to top Americans’ list of economic concerns, even as worries about gas prices have climbed since the war in Iran began. Sixty-four percent of adults said they’re worried about being able to afford health care costs, and the same share said they were worried about gas and other transportation costs, up from 52 percent in January. Health care affordability is also poised to play a real political role this fall: 55 percent of voters said it will have a “major impact” on their decision to vote, and 61 percent said it will affect which party’s candidate they support. Voters trust Democrats over Republicans to address health care costs (37 to 26 percent) and prescription drug costs (33 to 26 percent).

• Most Americans don’t want politicians drawing their own districts. In a new Economist/YouGov poll (Apr. 24 - 27, 2026), 71 percent of Americans said that states should not be allowed to draw congressional districts in a way that intentionally favors one party, while just 7 percent said it should be allowed — with bipartisan opposition from 74 percent of Democrats, 70 percent of independents, and 69 percent of Republicans. The same poll also asked about mail voting, where Americans are unsympathetic to Donald Trump’s proposed restrictions: a 58 percent majority said mail voting should either be made easier or kept the same, while just 33 percent said it should be made harder or eliminated entirely.

• For young adults today, moving back in with mom and dad is increasingly the norm. According to a new Ipsos poll conducted for Thrivent Financial (Mar. 24 - Apr. 3, 2026), 29 percent of Americans aged 18-35 have moved back in with their parents at least once as an adult, and another 32 percent never left in the first place. Among those who came back, 55 percent said it was financially necessary. Twenty percent of those aged 18-35 who haven’t bought a home say they don’t expect to ever purchase one. The good news for young adults: most parents say they are willing to cut down on personal expenses or savings goals to help support their adult children at home. (Your poll columnist would welcome a home cooked meal at his mother’s table.)

• And to end on an optimistic note: a new Gallup survey (Mar. 2 - 18, 2026) finds Americans think kindness is alive and well. Sixty percent of U.S. adults said they see people treating others with kindness and respect “often” or “very often,” while 65 percent reported personally experiencing an act of kindness from someone in their community at least once in the past seven days, and nearly three-quarters (73 percent) said most Americans are very or somewhat kind.

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Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 10:00 AM Eastern on May 1, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

Democrats have held their lead on the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot at +5 (after rounding) over the last week, with 47.3 percent of registered voters saying they’ll cast their ballot for Democrats this fall versus 42.3 percent for the Republicans.

Trump’s job approval

President Trump’s approval rating among U.S. adults held steady at an all-time low of 36.7 percent this week, while the percent of Americans who disapprove of the job he is doing rose to 59.3 percent. As of May 1 at 10:00 AM, this is the first time Trump’s rating has rounded to -23.

These averages update fresh on the 50+1 website with every new poll we add to our database.

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In the context of horse race polls, campaigns are stable, polls are noisy, and your average should really be quite steady. A trend line that twitches at every new survey is committing two errors: first, it’s reacting to noise in the data, a statistical error; and second, it’s really not adding anything journalistically anymore: readers can already see what the polls say, so an average should be able to tell them something more than whatever the latest survey showed.

Every once in a while, however, something actually happens that causes opinions to change. Campaign events like a candidate dropping out, a new scandal breaking, or a bad (or good!) debate performance can and do shape competitive races. A polling average that doesn’t move accordingly is missing something.

I’ve been thinking about this recently in the context of our average of polls for the upcoming California gubernatorial primary. Our polling average, as it appeared on April 28, 2026, appears below:

This is a reasonable average for a primary campaign that doesn’t have any major events going on. But that’s not what’s happening here. Former U.S. House Rep. Eric Swalwell suspended his campaign on April 13, following allegations of sexual misconduct from multiple women. More than two weeks later, our model still has him at 11.8% — within a point of where he’d been all spring (because Swalwell is still on the ballot, we have kept him on our average).

Yet support for Swalwell has actually plunged. Surveys taken after he suspended his campaign show him in the low single digits.

This model error is an interesting problem, from a statistics perspective, and worth walking readers through, because the same thing happens in every primary cycle and we want to use a polling average that can react to surprises when they happen. The fix we have come up with is also pretty satisfying, we think.

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Why the model gets stuck

First, why is the average so stable in the first place?

The polling averages at 50+1 are powered by a statistical model detailed in full here. Each candidate has an underlying level of “true support” that evolves day to day as a random walk over time. Statistically, this is formulated as:

average[today] = average[yesterday] + step[today]

Where step[today] is a number that is drawn from a statistical distribution called a Laplace distribution that looks like this:

This distribution allows for both a higher occurrence of extreme values and a higher concentration of zeroes than the normal or other fat-tailed distribution. We use the Laplace distribution because, as theorized above, we don’t want the polling average to move around too much from day to day — but on days that campaign events happen, we want the average to be able to make big jumps.

We call these jumps ‘steps’ in the statistical parlance. Every day, the polling average is allowed to move up or down by a certain amount, which we call average_change.

Formally,

step[today] ~ laplace(0, average_change)

The parameter average_change controls how much the trend is allowed to move per day. A small value gives a smooth line; a larger one gives a jumpier line. We estimate average_change as a parameter in our statistical model, meaning it’s allowed to have a high value in races where opinions are volatile (hello, CA-Gov!) and a small value in other races. Usually the value is about 0.3 percentage points per day — small enough that the model expects gentle drift in opinion, with very occasional jumps.

Because we are Bayesians here at 50+1, we do not fit this model completely from scratch. Each day’s value for average is softly anchored to a simple exponentially-weighted moving average (EWMA) of the non-partisan polls in a race. This anchor serves two purposes: first, it allows us to incorporate other averaging techniques in our average (we are not perfect); and second, it dramatically speeds up the runtime of the computer program that powers our averages.

So this means that support for a candidate on a given day depends on three variables: the previous day’s level of support, the soft anchor from the EWMA, and today’s new poll observations. In normal times this works beautifully: you get a smooth curve of opinion with medium-sized jumps when a normal campaign event like a debate or a gaffe happens. The model’s estimates are exactly as smooth as you want.

But as any modeler knows, the real world can be quite messy. When a a non-normal event happens that changes the dynamics of a race overnight — we call these “shocks” — two of the variables above become statistical liabilities:

1. The random-walk prior says huge day-to-day moves are unlikely. Because the model’s average_change parameter is fit to account for big campaign shocks in the tails of the distribution, shocks that are even more extreme get washed out as noise.

2. The EWMA anchor still includes old, pre-shock polls, pulling the trend toward the old level. Even if the random walk loosened up, the anchor would yank the trend back.

The normal model that is walking around the world, whistling as it processes a steady stream of data that fits its idea of what a “normal” event is, is caught off guard by the shock.

How do we fix this?

Fix 1: Tell the model when a big campaign event happened, and let the average jump around after

Our first move is to tell the model when shocks occur, and to let it move the average dramatically to account for new polling if it decides to. After a campaign shock, the model inflates the average_change variable so the trend can jump around.

Concretely, we convert the single variable average_change to a vector of individual daily change values (called daily_change) that varies over time, instead of being a single fixed value. Before a shock, daily_change is equal to the value of average_change. But on the day a shock happens, daily_change jumps up by some multiplier value (the default ×10) to let the model move the polling average more. Each subsequent day, the value of daily_change decays exponentially back down to its baseline, returning to the normal level in about 14 days.

By making this change, we allow both a candidate’s average level of support and our certainty about it to change over time. We’ve encoded our prior knowledge from observing campaign events that a big jump is plausible right now.

To be clear, we have not told model what direction to jump, only that a big jump is now possible. The data still drives what direction the model moves, we’ve just temporarily removed the penalty on big jumps that would otherwise get suppressed by even a fat-tailed distribution. (Readers who work in finance will clock this as similar to a stochastic volatility model).

Fix 2: Re-anchor the average to an updated, post-shock prior

But loosening the random walk alone isn’t enough. The model still has its prior trend — the EWMA run on all the polls — that is averaging together a bunch of pre-shock data. This pulls the final trend toward the old one, even with the wider variance on the daily steps.

So on and after a shock day, we calculate an additional new EWMA that only consists of the data taken after the campaign shock. Then we average this new, post-shock EWMA with the usual, full-period EWMA, giving 80% of the weight in that average to the fast-moving EWMA and 20% on the older one.

This 80/20 blend makes sure the post-EWMA average doesn’t get pulled around by noise in polls. If we anchored the new average just to post-shock polls, we would let one or two early polls dictate the new level of the model, which adds a lot of noise to the average. The 20% weight on the full-period EWMA stabilizes the anchor when post-shock data is thin, and its influence shrinks naturally as more post-shock polls accumulate (and as we move away from the shock).

Methodologically this is equivalent to telling the model that the unobserved process changed regimes at the shock date, so older polls are partially informative about the new regime but not fully.

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A newer, faster-moving average — when it’s warranted

To refresh your memory, here is what the old CA gubernatorial primary average looked like:

And here’s the same race, with the same polls, using the new model:

The Swalwell line now does what we would expect it to a priori and takes a sharp drop in mid-April, settling at 3.2% by April 29 — about where the post-scandal polls have him. We also added a new line (in medium-blue color) for Xavier Becerra, the former secretary of health and human services who has gained a lot since Swalwell dropped out. (Our rule of thumb is to include candidates in our polling averages if they are routinely polling above 5%. That wasn’t true of Becerra before Swalwell suspended his campaign, but it is true now.)

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Tunable parameters

To recap for anyone running a similar version of our average at home, we have introduced three new variables that the model can tune appropriately:

• shock_multiplier (default 10): The peak multiplicative factor on the value of average_change on the day a big shock occurred. Higher means bigger jumps in the average.

• shock_decay (default ln(10)/14 ≈ 0.165 per day, or a return to normal variance 2 weeks after the campaign shock): Higher means a shorter window of elevated variance.

• post_shock_weight (default 0.8): weight on the post-shock EMA in the blended anchor. Higher is more responsive, less stable.

Both shock_multiplier and shock_decay are estimated as parameters in our Bayesian model, run in the programming language Stan, with the user-supplied values acting as priors on these values. So the defaults are starting points, not hard settings — the data can pull them in either direction. The post_shock_weight is specified in an ad-hoc way, and we can probably improve the average by testing different values on historical primaries.

Closing thoughts

Coding a polling averages requires making a tradeoff between stability and reactivity, and there is no single model that works perfectly for every race. A model tuned to react quickly to shocks will jitter through ordinary noise; a model tuned for stability will sit through real events.

The best way to resolve this tension is to make the model conditional on whether something has happened — quiet most days, willing to move on the days that count. We have resisted doing this in the past because it means assembling a dataset of campaign shocks over every race we are monitoring, and all the races in our historical polling data. But we think the extra effort is worth the gains in accuracy.

We will now be using this accommodating average for all primary campaigns, and are testing it on general election averages too. We are not immediately planning to move the presidential approval or generic ballot averages over to the model with hard, user-specified shocks, because in our research these polls tend to react more predictably to the historical range of real-world events. But if something does happen, we now have a framework for enabling the same degree of reactivity in those contexts, too.

Paid subscribers to 50+1 get access to premium analysis, plus sortable tables and complete data access on our polling website. If you want to follow the 2026 cycle with the best data at your fingertips, become a paid subscriber.

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This week, we rolled out new averages at FiftyPlusOne of favorability polling for the Democratic and Republican parties, calculated back to January 2025. These averages show ratings of the Democratic Party holding steady (and negative) since the beginning of Donald Trump’s second term as president, and views of the Republicans turning sharply south.

Democrats started Trump’s second term with a net rating of -17, 54.6 percent unfavorable to 37.1 percent favorable, and today are rated at -18, 55.3 to 37.0. Republicans, meanwhile, started at -7 (49.4 percent to 42.1 percent) and today score a -16 (55 to 39).

We can use these polls to calculate a “net favorability advantage” for both parties, measured as the difference between the two parties’ net ratings. Numbers above zero mean Democrats have a better net rating than Republicans; numbers below zero mean Republicans have the edge. Here’s what that statistics looks like since Bill Clinton’s presidency:

Party favorability has been a subject of considerable conversation in the media over the last year. Back in July, we wrote about a much-discussed Wall Street Journal poll that put the Democratic Party at a net favorability of -30 and a 19-point deficit against Republicans. That piece made three arguments worth updating here: that the WSJ number was an outlier against the average of polls (Democrats looked more like -10 compared to Republicans); that much of the Democratic favorability deficit comes from in-party disaffection by “very liberal” Democrats who don’t plan to defect at the ballot box; and that party favorability this far from an election has “almost no predictive power” for midterm results.

Out-parties tend to gain ground on favorability

Armed with our new averages, we want to follow up on that last point. One reason favorability is a poor predictor of election results is that it is not the same as vote choice; you can view a party (or candidate) unfavorably and still vote for it (them). Another reason is that favorability numbers move a lot between inauguration and Election Day, in ways that look fairly similar across cycles. Exhibit A of this might be the 2026 election: Democrats had a nearly -10 net favorability disadvantage versus the Republicans in January of 2025, but the difference between the parties’ ratings now is just -1.4.

Since 1992, six cycles have started with a new party taking the White House: Clinton in 1993, George W. Bush in 2001, Obama in 2009, Trump in 2017, Biden in 2021, and Trump again in 2025. (For our purposes here, we will set aside the 2001 cycle because the September 11 terror attacks disrupted first-term favorability dynamics, and basically all other political polling, in ways that don’t generalize.) In the four completed cycles we can compare to, the out-party’s favorability advantage either grew or stayed roughly flat between inauguration and the first midterm. In none of those cycles did it get meaningfully worse.

The magnitudes vary a lot. Republicans entering the Obama administration started at about -36, one of the deepest favorability deficits in the series — and gained nearly 33 points by the 2010 midterm, finishing close to parity. Republicans in 2021 started 21 points down and gained about 17 points by November 2022. Republicans in 1993, barely underwater at -2, gained 7 points by 1994. And the 2017 Democrats — the only out-party in this window to come in with an advantage, at +12 — moved essentially sideways, ending the cycle one point below where they started. That’s within the margin of error.

This pattern is consistent with a simple theory of mean reversion: the more underwater the out-party begins, the bigger the recovery as the in-party absorbs the normal wear and tear of governing.

One methodological note: Our new polling average was a little too jumpy on old, noisy historical data, so for this article we are using a slightly smoother version for modern polling for the sake of comparison. This smoother version tends to soften bounces and reversions from running an average over sparse data, but also dampens spikes after elections and other big events.

According to our smoother average, Democrats have gained about four points of favorability advantage since Trump’s inauguration in January. That’s broadly in line with historical expectations: the predominant pattern in the data is mean reversion, and because Democrats started this cycle only 6 points down on our average, we shouldn’t expect as large a movement as if they were down 21 points like the GOP in 2021, or their -36 in 2009.

Democrats in 2026: Not as bad as it seems?

There are two reasons this matters. First, it reinforces our point last summer that the “worst-ever” framing of the WSJ poll was never really supported by the average of polls: an average of polls never showed a -19 hole. Second, it’s evidence of our other point that the out-party should gain ground in favorability before the midterms, as the party in power accumulates policy shocks and thermostatic public opinion kicks in.

We argued in July that the Democratic brand wasn’t as broken as a single bad poll implied. The historical pattern in our new average adds a complementary point: that party brands are to an extent “self-healing” over the long term and relative to the other party. This presents a fundamental challenge for both parties: even if you’re strictly enacting policies voters support, how can you hope to build a durable long-term coalition?

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Other polling nuggets

• In a new Reuters/Ipsos poll (Apr. 15 - 20), Americans, especially Republicans, expressed concerns about the upcoming midterm election. Forty-six percent of respondents said that there are large numbers of fraudulent ballots cast by non-citizens in U.S. elections (in reality, this is not a widespread problem), including 82 percent of Republicans. Moreover, 83 percent of Republicans said they worried about fraudulent mail-in ballots, compared with 33 percent of Democrats and 53 percent of Americans overall. And while just 28 percent of Americans supported National Guard presence at the polls, 45 percent of Republicans said they did.
  
  There are some points of agreement between the parties, though. Seventy-nine percent of Democrats and 71 percent of Republicans agreed that their own ballots will be counted properly. And 77 percent of Americans, including 95 percent of Republicans and 63 percent of Democrats, support a requirement that voters show some form of ID at the polls.

• For the first time in over 15 years, Democrats have taken the lead over Republicans on who voters trust more to handle the economy in Fox News polling. According to a new Fox/Beacon Research/Shaw and Company Research poll (Apr. 17 - 20, 2026), voters said that Democrats would do a better job on the economy than Republicans by a margin of 4 points. Democrats hold a lead on some other key midterm issues, including healthcare (21 point lead), inflation and prices (8 point lead), and foreign policy (6 point lead). On the other hand, Republicans continue to dominate Democrats on border security (16 point lead), and hold a lead on other important midterm issues, including immigration (8 point lead) and national security (6 point lead).

• Asked about a variety of quality of life issues, voters are overwhelmingly pessimistic in a new Echelon Insights poll (Apr. 17 - 20, 2023). Topping the list: “trust in government and institutions,” which 73 percent said was getting worse and 12 percent said was getting better, a margin of 61 points. Next was “cost of living,” which voters said was getting worse rather than better by a margin of 60 points, “mental health and emotional well-being,” (49 points), and the quality of education and job security, tied at a margin of 40 points. The only issue tested that wasn’t underwater was “workplace safety,” where 31 percent of voters said it was getting better over time, and 31 percent said it was getting worse.

• Who will be the first to reach Mars? According to a new RMG Research/Napolitan News Service poll (Apr. 14 - 15, 2026), it’s nearly a tied race between SpaceX and the U.S. government, with 35 percent of voters saying the government will be first to land a human on the red planet, and 31 percent saying Elon Musk’s company will lead the way. Another seven percent say China will get to Mars first, and 4 percent say some other private company will.

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Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 10:00 AM Eastern on April 24, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

Democrats have held their lead on the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot at +5 (after rounding) over the last week, with 47.4 percent of registered voters saying they’ll cast their ballot for Democrats this fall versus 42.4 percent for the Republicans.

Trump’s job approval

President Trump’s approval rating fell to a new all-time low of 36.7 percent this week, while the percent of Americans who disapprove of the job he is doing rose to 59.2 percent. This is the first time his disapproval has risen above 59. Trump’s -22 rating matches his first-term low, which came after the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

These averages update fresh on the 50+1 website with every new poll we add to our database.

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Paid subscribers to 50+1 get access to premium analysis, plus sortable tables and complete data access on our polling website. If you want to follow the 2026 cycle with the best data at your fingertips, become a paid subscriber.

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In the polling analysis industry, we rightfully spend a lot of time focused on the president’s approval rating as a proxy for general voter sentiment. And there’s good reasons for that: there’s a strong correlation between, for example, presidential approval and midterm elections (among other things). But today, we’re going to look at some of the other types of questions pollsters ask about the president, to try to get a better understanding of how voters view him overall, and whether those views have evolved.

In a survey released this week, YouGov/The Economist (Apr. 10 - 13, 2026) asked respondents whether various words did or did not apply to the president. A selection of these words includes honest, effective, and strong; as well as corrupt, cruel, and dangerous. The word most commonly selected by respondents as applying to President Donald Trump was “dangerous,” which 52 percent of respondents said described Trump, while 16 percent said it did not.

YouGov has asked this before, so we can get a sense of how sentiment may have changed in recent months because of high-profile events (the U.S. capture of Nicolás Maduro in Venezuela is arguably the starting point for the current foreign policy turmoil, for example). We looked at a YouGov/The Economist poll conducted December 12-15, 2025, before recent foreign entanglements, and there appears to have been significant movement on these traits. For example, in December, the word most commonly selected as describing Donald Trump was not “dangerous,” it was “bold” (this had fallen to third place by the April survey). And Trump has also fallen on other positive traits as well. In fact, on every characteristic tested, Trump has shifted between December and April, generally in the wrong direction.

And perhaps worryingly for the president, while his approval rating overall hasn’t dropped much with Republicans, you do see drops in these characteristics. For example, in December, just 8 percent of Republicans said they thought the word “dangerous” applied to the president. By April, that had doubled to 16 percent. The percentage of Republicans who said they thought the president was “intelligent” dropped from 74 to 67 percent between the two surveys. And the percent of Republicans who said that “effective” describes Trump fell from 80 percent in December to 68 percent in the April poll.

This kind of change is meaningful, because the president’s job approval in our current era of high polarization has become less a signal of presidential performance and more a signal of partisan identity. Most Republicans are not willing to tell a pollster they disapprove of the president unless he does something truly beyond the pale, but they can express their concerns in other ways.

Views of Trump outside of his approval rating appear fairly sour in other polls as well. In an RMG Research/Napolitan News survey (Apr. 13 - 14, 2026), 51 percent of registered voters said that Trump should resign as president, while 42 percent said he should not – more than thought former President Joe Biden should resign in the wake of his disastrous debate performance in 2024. In a Data for Progress poll (Apr. 9 - 14, 2026), 50 percent of respondents said Trump should be removed from office due to his April 7th social media post that stated, in part, “a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”

Indeed, it may be the case that the social media posts are driving some of this dimming sentiment. In a series of overnight surveys conducted by YouGov asking about some of Trump’s more inflammatory posts, Trump’s statements are deep underwater. For example, Trump’s post last Sunday attacking the Pope saw an approval rating of 18 percent, with disapproval at 56 percent. The aforementioned statement about annihilating a whole civilization had approval at 23, with 64 percent disapproval. (The pollster has also tested several other social media posts in the last few weeks.)

Generally, Americans seem confused about what Trump is trying to do with his social media. In a CBS News/YouGov poll conducted last week (Apr. 8 - 10, 2026), asked whether Trump’s social media posts are meant to be what he “intends to do at the time” or “negotiating strategies,” 33 percent of Americans said the posts reflected what Trump intends to do, 24 percent said they were negotiating strategies, and 43 percent said they were both.

YouGov/Economist also routinely asks respondents whether they actually like the president. This “likability” score tends to be a bit lower than the president’s overall approval rating, for two reasons: first, it’s perfectly reasonable to support the policies and official actions of a particular politician, while disliking them personally; and second, because the pollster offers a response option of “neither like nor dislike.” Since the pollster began asking the question, the lowest number of Americans that have ever said they like the president personally is 26 percent, which has been achieved only three times: in the wake of January 6, 2021, in January of 2024, and in March of this year. Trump’s lowest net likability (the difference between the number of respondents who say they like and dislike him) reached the second-lowest level in the history of the series in March.

Even as people’s views of the president’s characteristics have dimmed, though, on other aspects of Trump’s temperament and personality, very little has changed. For example, the April YouGov/Economist survey asked about Trump’s cognitive health and age. Forty-eight percent of respondents said that Trump is suffering modest or significant cognitive decline, while 32 percent said he is not suffering any cognitive decline. This is almost exactly the same as numbers the pollster has previously published; in a YouGov poll conducted last September (Sept. 2 - 4, 2025), 48 percent of respondents said that Trump is suffering significant or modest cognitive decline, and 33 percent said he is not suffering any cognitive decline. In the September survey, respondents said by a margin of 10 points that Trump is too old to be president; in April, they said he was too old by a margin of 8 points.

All in all, it seems that views of Trump as a person and his personality traits have suffered as a result of his most recent actions as president. While his approval ratings and opinions about his age are roughly stable, he is eroding significantly elsewhere, where partisans feel more free to express their disapproval.

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Other polling nuggets

• A new Ipsos America 250 survey (Feb. 25 – Mar. 4, 2026) finds Americans still hold tight to foundational ideals even as confidence in the country’s trajectory erodes: 83 percent say believing in freedom, justice, and equality is important to being American, and 88 percent agree there’s an urgent need for greater unity. But 52 percent say the country’s best days are behind us (versus 44 percent who say ahead), and 77 percent say they have serious doubts about the country’s future. Perhaps most strikingly, while 71 percent say it’s important for the U.S. to provide Americans the opportunity to live prosperous and happy lives, just 19 percent say the country is doing that well — a 52-point gap.

• A new Quinnipiac University poll (Apr. 9 – 13, 2026) finds voters expect the war in Iran to drag on, but partisans disagree sharply on how long. Overall, 68 percent of registered voters say the war will last months (36 percent), about a year (13 percent), or longer (19 percent); just 4 percent think days and 20 percent weeks. Republicans are substantially more optimistic, with 38 percent saying days or weeks versus only 12 percent of Democrats, while 45 percent of Democrats expect the war to last a year or longer compared to just 16 percent of Republicans.

• Americans continue to be skeptical about artificial intelligence, according to a YouGov poll conducted this week (Apr. 17, 2026) among 10,658 U.S. adults. Forty-five percent said the effects of AI on society will be somewhat or very negative, while just 32 percent said somewhat or very positive and 15 percent said neither. Trust numbers tell a similar story: 7 percent said they trust AI to provide accurate information a great deal and 34 percent a fair amount, while a combined 50 percent said they trust it not much or not at all.

• A new memo from Third Way and UnidosUS (Impact Research/BSP Research, March 10 - 20, 2026, 1,000 likely voters with an oversample of 850 Hispanic voters) finds President Trump deeply underwater, with favorability at 44 percent favorable to 55 percent unfavorable overall and 34 to 66 percent among Latino voters. On his signature issue, voters overall say Trump and Republicans have “gone too far” on immigration enforcement by 55 to 43 percent; among Latinos, that jumps to 70 to 29 percent. And 59 percent of voters — including 81 percent of Latinos — say ICE needs significant reforms before receiving any additional funding, with 27 percent of voters overall (and 41 percent of Latinos) saying the agency should be abolished altogether.

• A new Pew Research Center analysis (published Apr. 15, 2026, based on the Spring 2025 Global Attitudes Survey of 25 countries) finds Americans stand out among residents of wealthy democracies for their dissatisfaction with their political system. Despite the U.S. having the highest GDP per capita of any country surveyed, 77 percent of Americans say the country’s political system needs major changes or complete reform — comparable to Brazil (87 percent), South Korea (86 percent), and Greece (83 percent), and well above Sweden (29 percent), the Netherlands (31 percent), and Canada (47 percent). The U.S. is also the only country surveyed where more adults rate the morality and ethics of their fellow citizens as bad than good, and just 26 percent of Americans say children today will be better off financially than their parents.

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Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 11:00 AM Eastern on April 17, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

Democrats have held their lead on the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot at +5 (after rounding) over the last week, with 47 percent of registered voters saying they’ll cast their ballot for Democrats this fall versus 42 percent for the Republicans.

Trump’s job approval

President Trump’s approval rating rose within the margin of error to 37.9 percent this week, while the percent of Americans who disapprove of the job he is doing also was flat at 58.1 percent. His -20 rating among all adults continues to be a historical low for this point in a president’s term, except for Richard Nixon’s rating during watergate.

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Primary season is officially heated up, so this week, FiftyPlusOne rolled out new polling averages for several competitive primaries taking place across the country this spring and summer. Here is where a selection of four high-profile contests stand as of April 10, 2026.

California Governor (nonpartisan primary)

California’s open gubernatorial race — governor Gavin Newsom is term-limited and can’t run again — is shaping up to be a wide-open contest. Because California uses a nonpartisan blanket primary, the top two finishers advance to November regardless of party, making the math particularly complicated in a crowded field. Given close polling today, it is possible that either Democrats or Republicans get “shut out” — meaning a candidate from that party doesn’t make it to the November general.

As of today, Republican political commentator Steve Hilton leads the pack with 18.2 percent of the vote, followed by Democratic Representative Eric Swalwell at 14.3 percent, Republican Sheriff Chad Bianco at 13.5 percent, Democratic businessman Tom Steyer at 11.7 percent, and former Representative Katie Porter at 10.1 percent. Hilton “leads” by just 4 points over the field — much smaller than the uncertainty we have given the time remaining until the election and imprecision of primary polling.

However, Hilton was recently endorsed by President Donald Trump, so it’s possible that he may consolidate more California Republican voters as time goes on. With five candidates bunched within 8 points of each other, predicting who finishes in the top two is genuinely difficult. Moreover, California certified over 60 candidates for the primary ballot, so there’s still time for someone else to rise to prominence.

Texas Republican Senate Runoff

In the Senate primary runoff between Attorney General Ken Paxton and incumbent Senator John Cornyn, Paxton has opened up a meaningful lead: our average has him at 47.7 percent to Cornyn’s 40.6 percent, a margin of +7. Notably, Paxton started the runoff period polling above 50 percent and has since settled back somewhat, while Cornyn has held relatively steady.

The polls in the first round of this primary underestimated Cornyn by about 7 points, so there is room for him to beat the polls — and Paxton. Polls of the first round also showed Paxton winning more votes from third place and now-eliminated candidate Wesley Hunt, so he should have the better shot to win. But there’s a long way to go until the election in May!

Louisiana Republican Senate Primary

Incumbent Senator Bill Cassidy is running for a third term in Louisiana, but his vote to convict Donald Trump in his second impeachment trial has made him a prime target for the president. Trump and Governor Jeff Landry both endorsed Representative Julia Letlow, who entered the race in January. Louisiana State Treasurer John Fleming, a former congressman and Trump administration official, is also a major contender.

Our average has the primary on May 16 as a genuine three-way race: Cassidy leads narrowly at 26.7 percent, with Letlow just behind at 25.9 percent and Fleming at 22.1 percent — a margin of just 1 point between first and second. The primary is set for May 16, with a runoff on June 27 if no candidate clears a majority. Given the current numbers, a runoff looks likely.

South Carolina Republican Governor Primary

With incumbent Governor Henry McMaster term-limited and ineligible to seek re-election, the race to succeed him has drawn a crowded Republican field. The top four contenders are Lieutenant Governor Pamela Evette, Attorney General Alan Wilson, and Representatives Nancy Mace and Ralph Norman, and the race has become, in the words of one person close to the Mace campaign, “first a race for an endorsement, and second, a race for governor” — Trump has yet to weigh in.

Our average as of April 9 has Mace leading narrowly at 20.1 percent, followed by Evette at 17.9 percent, Wilson at 16.9 percent, and Norman at 11.1 percent — a margin of just 2 points between first and second. The race has been volatile since we began tracking it, with the lead changing hands multiple times. The primary is set for June 9, with a runoff on June 23 if no candidate clears a majority.

A note on methodology: you can read about how we build our averages at fiftyplusone.news/methodology. As we’ve noted before, primary polling is noisy, and our averages should not be treated as definitive (or more definitive than the polling in a race warrants). All four averages will be updated as new polls are released.

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Other polling nuggets

• Generally speaking, Americans support the U.S. agreeing to a ceasefire in Iran if the nation reopens the Strait of Hormuz. In a YouGov poll conducted the day after the ceasefire was reached (Apr. 8, 2026), 66 percent approved of such a plan, while just 10 percent disapproved. However, one day later, Americans expressed some skepticism: When asked who the ceasefire actually benefits, 29 percent said the ceasefire benefits Iran more than the U.S., while 14 percent said it benefits the U.S. more. Another 27 percent said it benefits both equally, and the rest were not sure.

• A growing number of voters are skeptical about government spending. In a Fox News poll conducted by Beacon Research and Shaw & Co. Research (Mar. 20 - 23, 2026), 75 percent of responds said almost all or a great deal of federal government spending is wasteful and inefficient, up from 57 percent at this time last year. And a record 70 percent of respondents told the pollster that their own taxes are too high, the largest percentage to say so since the survey began asking the question in 2004.

• While Artemis II makes her way back to Earth, Americans feel positively about the space program and NASA. In an Ipsos poll (Apr. 3 - 5,2026), 80 percent of respondents said they had a favorable opinion of NASA. In addition, 76 percent said the U.S. space programs makes them feel proud. As to long term goals, 59 percent said they thought it was strategically important for the U.S. to establish a long-term presence on the moon, while 37 percent said it was not that important to U.S. interests. (Newt Gingrich must be so excited.)

• According to a Pew Research survey (Mar. 23 - 29, 2026), Republican support for NATO continues to decline. Asked how much the U.S. benefits from NATO membership, just 38 percent of Republicans said the U.S. benefits a great deal or a fair amount, down from 55 percent in 2021 and the high 40s in 2025. Independents saw a similar decline: 59 percent said the U.S. benefits a great deal or fair amount from NATO membership, down from 71 percent in 2021 and the mid-60s in 2025. Democrats, however, are holding strong: between 81 and 85 percent of Democrats said that NATO membership benefits the U.S. in every survey Pew has conducted between 2021 and today.

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Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 9:00 AM Eastern on April 10, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

Democrats have held their lead on the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot at +5 (after rounding) over the last week, with no significant change in our aggregate. Today 47 percent of registered voters saying they’ll cast their ballot for Democrats this fall, versus 42 percent for the Republicans. Around 11 percent of registered voters are undecided.

Trump’s job approval

President Trump’s approval rating rose within the margin of error to 37.6 percent this week, while the percent of Americans who disapprove of the job he is doing fell slightly to 58.1. His -20 to -21 rating is a historical low for this point in a president’s term.

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Donald Trump won the 2024 election in large part on two promises to the American people. First, he wouldn’t get involved in any more foreign wars; candidate Trump charged Democrats with dragging the country into endless quagmires in Ukraine and the Middle East that used up resources that could be spent here at home. And second, he would bring down prices for everyday goods and services such as groceries, electricity, and gasoline.

But despite his promise to lower prices “on Day One,” inflation hasn’t fallen during his first year in office. And in starting a war with Iran on Feb. 28, 2026, President Trump broke the first promise — and he set off a chain of events that would further exacerbate prices, breaking the second. Since the start of the war, the national average price of a gallon of gasoline in America has risen 42%, from $2.90 to $4.13.

Accordingly, Americans’ approval of how Trump is handling prices has fallen to an all-time low. The 50+1 average of issue polls, which indexes every national survey that asks Americans how they think the president is handling certain policies, shows Trump’s rating on prices/inflation falling from -26 at the start of the war (already his worst policy issue overall) to -33 today.

But the bigger drop has come on handling America’s relationship with Iran. After strikes last summer that the administration claimed destroyed Iran’s capability to build a nuclear weapon, Trump’s net approval rating on the issue was -7. That made conflict with Iran one of the president’s strongest issues — better than his approval rating overall, on foreign policy, and even on immigration, his rosiest issue today. And the short-lived military intervention in Venezuela was also viewed more positively than his overall approval and his foreign policy approval. But as the current war has unfolded, voters have turned against him quickly. On March 1, adults were against Trump’s handling of Iran by 13 points. Today, his rating has fallen to -27.

Americans’ net rating of how President Trump is handling foreign policy in general has also sunk since March 1, from -16 to -19.

The war in Iran presents a two-pronged issue for the president. Not only is it a highly visible example of him breaking a key election promise, but rising gas prices also feed directly into voters’ anxieties about the cost-of-living crisis that already constituted Trump’s weakest issue. Voters are experiencing two broken promises at once.

The cost of these broken promises are also visible in Trump’s overall approval rating, which has fallen from -19 to -21 since the start of the conflict. And that’s bad for the president, because it’s much easier to lose a supporter than persuade an opponent. As I wrote last week, Trump’s approval trend basically never improves — once he loses support, he doesn’t win it back.

The political question now is whether either issue resolves in favor of the president. If gas prices stay elevated and the war continues without a clear resolution — or even if it resolves, but the flow of oil remains interrupted — Republicans will face voters at the midterms who feel worse off on the two things Trump promised to fix. But immediate deescalation, for now, looks unlikely: On Tuesday, April 7, Trump threatened Iran by posting on his social media app that “a whole civilization will die tonight.” If the president continues to break his promises, his numbers will continue to slip.

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On Thursday, April 2, 2026, President Donald Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi, a move that had been rumored to be in the works for some time. Bondi joins former Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem as the second cabinet-level official to lose their job in Trump’s second term, within the space of less than a month. So this week on The Trendline, we’re taking a look back on how Americans have viewed Bondi, her handling of her job, and the Department of Justice under her leadership.

At the time of her appointment, the public seemed more or less okay with the choice. In a YouGov/The Economist survey taken just as Trump was being inaugurated (Jan. 19 - 21, 2025), 40 percent of respondents said they approved of her nomination, while 32 percent disapproved. Of the 9 cabinet-level appointees asked about in the survey, this net approval of 8 points was the second strongest, beaten only by approval of Marco Rubio as nominee for Secretary of State (48 percent approved, 32 percent disapproved).

This initial support came in the context of a wave of media, in which Bondi promised ahead of her confirmation vote that she would not “politicize” the Justice Department, and that justice would be “administered evenhandedly” through the country. Compared to some of Trump’s other picks, such as Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth or Secretary of Homeland Security Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Bondi was seen as a more conventional choice: a state attorney general being elevated to the federal level.

Bondi was confirmed on Feb. 2, 2025, and quickly stumbled into her first mistakes. On Feb. 21, 2025, she told Fox News host John Roberts that the Epstein “client list” was “sitting on my desk right now to review,” causing months of speculation about what she might mean. Later that month, she released the “Epstein Files Part 1,” largely consisting of material that had previously been made public. By July, the Justice Department had denied Bondi’s claims, releasing a memo saying that there was no evidence Epstein was murdered, or that a “client list” existed.

Bondi did not fare well in the polling after this memo was published. In an AtlasIntel survey at the time (Jul. 13 - 18, 2025), 74 percent of voters said they believed that an authentic client list existed based on Bondy’s February statements, and 54 percent said that the DOJ was engaged in “a cover-up of Trump’s previous relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.” Asked if Bondi should remain Attorney General “after the DOJ’s July 2025 memo contradicted her earlier statements about a Jeffrey Epstein ‘client list’,” 28 percent said they thought she should remain, while 51 percent said she should resign.

And while the scandal of the Epstein investigation has swirled in the background throughout Trump’s second term, it’s hardly the only issue Bondi has had to contend with. Facing pressure from Trump, the Justice Department began several prosecutions and investigations into Trump’s perceived enemies, such as James Comey in September 2025 and Leticia James in October 2025. (Both cases were later dismissed in court.)

These moves also didn’t sit particularly well with the public. In a Marquette Law School poll (Nov. 5 - 12, 2025), 55 percent of respondents said that the Justice Department had “filed unjustified cases against Donald Trump’s political opponents,” while 45 percent said the cases were justified. In the same poll, 58 percent said that cases filed against Trump in 2022-2024 were justified, while 42 percent thought they were unjustified, indicating that the public wasn’t just concerned about cases against political figures, but the Trump Justice Department in particular. And in a survey from YouGov/The Economist (Sept. 26 - 29, 2025), 55 percent of respondents said they thought Trump was “directing the Justice Department to go after his political enemies,” while just 25 percent said they thought he wasn’t.

This sentiment has persisted over time: in a YouGov/The Economist poll taken this month (Mar. 13 - 16, 2026), the same question was asked. In that poll, 56 percent of respondents said they thought Trump was using the Justice Department to go after enemies, while 23 percent disagreed. And the Epstein controversy has continued to swirl, as more files have been released and, controversially, some have not. Voters continue to be skeptical of the administration on the issue. In a University of Massachusetts/YouGov survey taken last week (Mar. 20 - 25, 2026), 59 percent of respondents agreed that the Trump administration is “hiding important information about the Epstein case,” while 18 percent disagreed and 24 percent said they “neither agree nor disagree.”

Throughout each of these scandals, Bondi’s unpopularity has continued to grow. While favorability or approval for cabinet level officials is not asked in every survey, we compiled all the instances where YouGov/The Economist asked respondents about Bondi’s favorability.

While her favorable rating has barely changed over time (it has been between 22 and 27 in every instance), her unfavorable rating has slowing grown, from 24 percent in late January to 48 percent in the most recent survey, conducted March 6 - 9, 2026. And in that survey, Americans also said that they supported Bondi’s firing more than any other Cabinet secretary, both in raw numbers and on net.

In all, Bondi served through a tumultuous time in the DOJ. Americans’ initial support and optimism of her nomination as a potentially more conventional Cabinet member was challenged almost immediately by her handling of the Epstein investigation, and her continued perceived missteps only served to increase her unpopularity. Now, we wait to see who Trump will nominate to try to pick up the pieces.

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Other polling nuggets

• If you think modern smartphones have gotten too big, you are not alone. According to a new Ipsos survey (Mar. 24 - 25, 2026), eight in ten adults say they prefer a smartphone they can operate with one hand, and the same share say it’s essential that their phone fit into a standard pocket without sticking out or feeling bulky. A majority (51 percent) say modern smartphones have become too wide to grip securely and comfortably, and nearly half (49 percent) wish there were more smaller options on the market. Fewer than half (48 percent) say they’d be willing to accept a bigger, heavier device in exchange for more screen space — suggesting that for most people, the tradeoff just isn’t worth it.

• If you could go to the moon — and were guaranteed a safe return — would you? According to a new YouGov survey (Apr. 1, 2026), a slim plurality of Americans say yes: 44 percent said they’d want to make the trip, while 40 percent said they would not (15 percent weren’t sure). Younger Americans were more likely to say they would take the trip, with 53 percent of those under 31 saying they’d go to the moon compared to just 31 percent among seniors. Women also took the less risky approach, saying 50 to 33 percent they would not take the trip, compared to 56 percent of men who said they would.

• A new Washington Post/George Mason University poll of Virginia’s redistricting referendum finds a tight race ahead of the April 21 election. In a poll that has Trump’s approval rating at 40% among registered voters, the referendum is ahead by just 6 points, 53 to 47 percent. The narrow margin may come down to turnout: 85 percent of Republican and Republican-leaning independents said they are certain to vote or already have, compared to 77 percent of Democrats. Early voting data has reinforced those concerns, with ballots in Republican-leaning districts outpacing those in Democratic-leaning ones.

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Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 11:00 AM Eastern on April 3, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

Democrats have held their lead on the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot at +5 (after rounding) over the last week, with 47 percent of registered voters saying they’ll cast their ballot for Democrats this fall versus 42 percent for the Republicans.

Trump’s job approval

Another week, another new low in President Trump’s approval rating. He fell to 37.1 percent approval as of Friday morning, a new low for his second term and rivaling his lowest point ever after the Jan. 6 riot at the U.S. capitol. The percent of Americans who disapprove of the job he is doing also rose from 57.8 to 58.8 percent. The net rating of -21.7 is also a new low.

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On February 14, 2026, the U.S. Senate failed to reach an agreement on funding for the Department of Homeland Security, the federal department that houses agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Coast Guard, and the Transportation Security Administration. This triggered a partial government shutdown affecting only the DHS. Democrats insisted that funding not be provided to ICE until changes are made to the way they enforce immigration laws, and Republicans insisted that the entire department be funded together. (Early Friday morning, March 27, Republicans in the Senate gave in and voted in favor of the Democratic plan to fund all offices in DHS except for ICE. The bill now heads to the House of Representatives.)

In the early days of the shutdown, barely anyone noticed (or cared). In an RMG Research/Napolitan News Service poll (Feb. 23 - 24, 2026) conducted 10 days after the shutdown began, just 57 percent of registered voters knew that there was a partial government shutdown ongoing. And only 4 percent of respondents said that the shutdown had “a lot” of impact on their daily life.

For comparison, that is far less than people knew about the shutdown last fall. In a poll taken at a similar point in the life of the fall shutdown (Oct. 13 - 14, 2025), 74 percent knew there was a government shutdown. During the fall shutdown, voter awareness grew over time: In the RMG Research/Napolitan News Service polling, by early November last year, 85 percent of voters knew there was a shutdown.

But this time around, it’s not clear that voters have tuned in in the same way. In a YouGov/CBS News poll taken last week (Mar. 17 - 20, 2026), just 55 percent said they were following news about the shutdown very or somewhat closely. And a third of respondents said they weren’t sure of the Democrats’ or Republicans’ positions on the issue (in reality, this is probably an underestimate, since some respondents might reflexively defend their “side” rather than admit they don’t know what’s going on).

Even so, in the early days of the current shutdown, it looked like the Democrats had a decent level of support for their position. In a Navigator Research poll (Feb. 19 - 23, 2026), 58 percent of voters said they agreed more that congress should “withhold funding from ICE until it changes its approach, even if that means shutting down the Department of Homeland Security,” while 34 percent agreed that they should “continue to fund ICE in its current form to reopen the Department of Homeland Security.”

However, as TSA agents have gone weeks without a paycheck, Americans are starting to see chaos at the nation’s largest airports. Hundreds of TSA agents have quit, and some airports have reported call-out rates among agents of up to 40 percent. And while Americans may not be paying close attention to the shutdown, they certainly noticed the consequences: in a YouGov poll this week (Mar. 25, 2026), 65 percent of Americans said that security wait times at airports were longer than average or among the longest they’ve ever been. Just 10 percent said they were average or shorter than usual. When asked how much the shutdown had increased wait times, 57 percent said “a great deal,” and another 16 percent said “a moderate amount.”

This increased attention on airports and TSA may have weakened Democrats’ hand on the issue. While the February polling from Navigator Research showed Democrats’ position ahead by 24 points, in a mid-March survey (Mar. 12 - 16, 2026), that support had cooled. Using slightly different question wording than the February survey, the March poll found that 49 percent of registered voters preferred Congress to “withhold all funding from the Department of Homeland Security, including funding for the TSA (Transportation Security Administration), until ICE changes its approach,” while 36 percent preferred Congress to fully fund the department, a margin of just 13 points.

As the chaos increased, several approaches to resolve the situation were proposed. Elon Musk offered to pay TSA agents temporarily. Senators offered a compromise deal that would fund parts of DHS, including TSA, but would not include funding for ICE and some other immigration-related departments. Earlier this week, President Donald Trump rejected both of these proposals, instead sending ICE agents to support the TSA in some airports. According to a Verasight/Strength in Numbers poll (Mar. 24 - 25, 2026), both these moves were underwater: Americans disapproved of deploying ICE to airports by 13 percentage points, and disapproved of Trump rejecting the Senate compromise by 31 percentage points.

Finally, in the wee small hours of Friday morning, the Senate went ahead and passed their compromise funding deal, despite the president saying he didn’t support it. And Trump, perhaps realizing how much stress this was causing to American travelers (63 percent of Americans told YouGov that disruptions and delays at airports are very or somewhat stressful), also found a workaround: on Thursday evening, he declared a national emergency, opening a pathway for him to spend funds on pay for TSA agents without having to wait for Congress to allocate them.

It’s yet to be seen whether these moves will help alleviate the travel stress plaguing Americans. We don’t know how quickly DHS will be able to issue backpay for agents, and with hundreds having already quit their jobs, there may still be disruption at some airports. However, it’s quite possible that if the issues with the TSA are more or less resolved via Trump’s emergency declaration, this shutdown will fade back into the background again. That could lead it to drag on even longer if Trump vetoes the legislative solution Senators have crafted, or the House fails to pass it. The shutdown last fall was 43 days, the longest in American history; today is day 41 of the DHS shutdown, so we could be poised to make history again.

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Other polling nuggets

• Americans’ top foreign policy priority related to the war in Iran is keeping gas prices low, a new poll from the Associated Press and NORC finds (Mar. 19 - 23, 2026). The survey asked U.S. adults how important it was for the U.S. to pursue four goals in foreign policy: preventing gas prices from rising, preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, preventing Iran from threatening Israel, and replacing Iran’s government with one that is “friendlier to U.S. interests.” In total, 67 percent of adults said it was extremely or very important to keep gas prices low, whereas 65 percent said the U.S. needed to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon and 39 percent said it was important to protect Israel. Regime change was the least popular goal; just 33 percent of Americans said it was extremely or very important to replace Iran’s government with a more friendly alternative.

• A new Fox News poll (Mar. 20 - 23, 2026) finds half of voters say they are falling behind in daily economic life, and 7-in-10 say neither party has a plan to bring prices down The 46 percent who say they are personally falling behind financially is near the survey’s all-time record — and 61 percent say they wouldn’t be able to pay their bills if they missed more than two paychecks. That’s up from 54 percent in 2023.

• For the first time in Gallup’s post-pandemic tracking, U.S. workers are more likely to say they are personally struggling in their lives (49 percent) versus thriving (46 percent). Just 28 percent of workers say now is a good time to find a quality job in the U.S., down from 70 percent in the middle of 2022. Job satisfaction has dropped across the board, but especially for federal workers: their happiness is down 12 points, double the decline among other workers.

• Americans think artificial intelligence would probably beat them at picking stocks, but are far less confident in AI’s ability to forecast elections. In a YouGov poll (Mar. 25, 2026), 17 percent said they’d beat a chatbot in the stock market, while 29 percent thought the robots would win out. But when it comes to elections, 19 percent thought AI would do better, while 21 percent thought they would beat the chatbots.

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Polling averages update

All numbers are as of 11:00 AM Eastern on March 27, 2026.

2026 U.S. House generic ballot

Democrats have held their lead on the 2026 U.S. House generic ballot at +5 (after rounding) over the last week, with 47 percent of registered voters saying they’ll cast their ballot for Democrats this fall versus 42 percent for the Republicans.

Trump’s job approval

Another week, another new low in President Trump’s approval rating. POTUS sagged to 37.9 percent this week, the first time in his second term that his approval percentage started with the number 37. His disapproval rating also rose slightly from 57.2 to 57.8 percent. The net rating of -19.9 is also a new low.

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