If you look at the few truly competitive seats, polls show a more complicated picture of momentum toward the Democratic Party in midterm House races. For the Senate, Republicans are on defense.
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BARACK OBAMA: And there’s gold everywhere. What’s up with the gold?
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AYESHA RASCOE, HOST:
That’s President Obama on the campaign trail this weekend.
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OBAMA: He’s got the White House looking like Saddam Hussein opened a Cheesecake Factory.
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RASCOE: The former president in Ohio there, commenting on the current president, who’s not on the ballot next week but kind of is. NPR’s senior national political correspondent Mara Liasson joins us now. Good morning, Mara.
MARA LIASSON, BYLINE: Good morning.
RASCOE: Ten days until Election Day. Many votes, of course, already cast, but that’s not stopping the pollsters.
LIASSON: That’s right. Polls show that Donald Trump is now at his lowest approval rating ever. In the Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll, 71% of voters say gas is unaffordable. That’s a 43% jump from February. Trump’s approval rating on the economy has fallen from 45% in February, which is pretty low, to now under 30%. And we – doesn’t tell you whether voters – former Trump supporters are going to turn out and vote for Democrats, but it does show you how deep the hole Republicans are in.
RASCOE: So the polls are bad for Republicans, but are they accurate? Because, you know, we’ve seen some shaky performances from polling firms in recent years.
LIASSON: Well, we’ll find out on Election Day if they’re accurate, but there is something that consumers of polls should remember – that the generic congressional ballot question can be confusing. It keeps on getting bigger for Democrats. It’s basically the question is – do you prefer a generic Democrat or a generic Republican to win your House seat? It’s supposed to be a proxy for the national popular vote for the House. The problem is that with extreme gerrymandering, it’s not that relevant anymore because there are so few actually competitive districts, districts that went for Harris or Trump by 5 points or less.
So the thing that’s more relevant is, what is the generic congressional ballot in just those dozen or so competitive seats? And there are some polls that measure that. And those polls show that instead of 8 or 9 or 11 points ahead, as Democrats are nationally in the generic ballot question, in those competitive seats, they’re only two or three points ahead. So it tells you how close those competitive House races are, and those are the races that are going to determine how big a majority Democrats get if they win the House.
RASCOE: And that’s the House. How about the Senate, where every race is a statewide race?
LIASSON: When you look at the races that are going to determine control of the Senate, most of them – Alaska, Texas, Ohio, Iowa – they are all toss-ups. Trump won them back in 2024 by an average of 13 points. These are very red states, and Democrats to win them have to do more than just motivate their base. Their base just isn’t big enough in those states. They’re going to have to flip Republican votes, and that’s hard for voters in red states who voted for Republicans their whole lives. So those states are all still too close to call.
RASCOE: Alaska’s Senate race is really competitive. The Trump administration just filed a lawsuit about it. What’s your take there?
LIASSON: Well, the Trump administration is asking a federal court to block certification of the Senate election results in Alaska if the Republican incumbent narrowly loses. This has never happened before. Their argument is that there are two people on the ballot with similar names. One is the incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan, and one is another candidate running, Daniel J. Sullivan Jr. The Trump administration is saying that could confuse voters and voters might mistakenly vote for the wrong Dan Sullivan. This has already gone to the Alaska state courts, which have ruled that it’s fine to have both Dan Sullivans on the ballot.
The Alaska Senate race is very close. The Democratic candidate Mary Peltola has been running ahead by a few points of Dan S. Sullivan, the incumbent, and election experts say it’s unlikely the suit will prevail, since the Constitution gives states, not the federal government, the right to control the way elections are conducted. But the suit is saying that it wants a delay in certification until it can conduct an investigation to determine whether voters really meant to cast their votes for the Dan Sullivan that they chose. Unclear how they would do that.
RASCOE: And quickly on the controversy in Ohio, where we heard from President Obama this weekend. Talk to me about that.
LIASSON: Well, this is a very controversial ad gubernatorial candidate Republican Vivek Ramaswamy is running, featuring the mother of his Democratic opponent, Amy Acton, telling voters that she’s a liar and they shouldn’t vote for her. The backstory is that Amy Acton and her brother were removed from custody of her mother more than 50 years ago after her stepfather was indicted for raping her. And many Republicans have spoken out against this ad, including the governor of Ohio, who said it’s just plain wrong. Donald Trump, however, says he thinks the ad is great. And the big question that this controversy raises is, can anyone besides Trump pull off this kind of campaigning?
RASCOE: That’s NPR’s Mara Liasson. Mara, thank you so much.
LIASSON: You’re welcome.
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