Analysis by CNN's Stephen Collinson
(CNN) - Republicans find themselves on the defensive to hold on to areas they never expected to be threatened four weeks before Election Day, while US President Donald Trump urges voters not to abandon his party, promising them more direct financial aid.
Meanwhile, a senior White House adviser argued Sunday on CNN that “partisan pollsters” are wrong to claim that voters are struggling financially; It is a message that indicates a gap between the country's reality and a president who boasts of a "golden age" of the economy.
Opinion polls released over the weekend indicated increasing risks for the Republican Party, with Democrats leading or running in close races in states that Trump won easily two years ago, amid signs that Latino voters, who helped return him to the White House, are turning away from him.
The war with Iran remains a heavy burden on Republicans as the final stretch of the midterm elections approaches, with little indication that high gasoline and diesel prices will return to lower levels soon, or at least in time for voters to feel the difference before November 2.
However, opinion polls conducted four weeks before the election do not conclusively predict its results, and there is palpable anxiety among Democrats who are still haunted by painful memories of previous defeats by a president who is now putting all his weight in the final weeks of the race.
This intense political battle highlights the critical stakes of these elections. Democrats are seeking to seize a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate, a majority they are likely to use to conduct expanded investigations into Trump's White House and his family's financial affairs during the final years of his term.
Democrats need to win a small number of seats to regain control of the House of Representatives, in which they currently have 214 seats, compared to 219 for Republicans, including an independent member who joins the majority bloc. They also need to achieve a net gain of four seats to control the Senate, in a battle that carries the tempting prospect of a showdown over the nomination of a new Supreme Court justice, after conservative Justice Samuel Alito told CBS News that he is considering retirement at the end of each judicial term.
In an attempt to overcome low approval rates hovering around 30%, Trump campaigned on Friday in the state of Alabama, which is a solid stronghold of the Republican Party. He spoke on Saturday at an election rally in Ohio, which he won by 11 points in 2024, but the competition there this year for a Senate seat seems very close and its outcome difficult to predict. His election tour schedule is another indication that his party is on the defensive one month before the election.
He has urged Republican voters in the Deep South to "imagine my name is on the ballot," and has spoken at length about the unprecedented "Golden Age" he says he has achieved. In an apparent attempt to make its message more attractive, the White House announced the disbursement of $90 to approximately 20 million seniors enrolled in the Medicare Part B program. Last month, Trump promised to give every American adult $5,000 if the Republicans won the midterm elections. In Ohio on Saturday evening, the president promised his voters - in a crude manner - to achieve victory over the Democrats, provided that they turn out in huge numbers to vote, saying: “We will achieve a landslide victory, and we will teach them a harsh and humiliating lesson.”
Trump aide to CNN: Talk about “frustrated” voters is not true
The White House is making great efforts to counter the narrative that Americans are under economic pressure.
Speaking on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told Jake Tapper: "It's classic Democratic style to have pollsters - perhaps partisan - telling us that people are feeling very, very frustrated." Hassett blamed former President Joe Biden for the rise in food commodity prices, considering that government data issued on Friday - which showed the creation of only 29,000 jobs in September - represents an exceptional and anomalous case.
On the other hand, Democrats believe that such descriptions reflect a state of denial within the White House. "People can't afford their living expenses," Arizona Senator Mark Kelly said on CBS' "Face the Nation," describing Trump's financial promises as an attempt to "buy votes."
Republican Senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy, also warned that the cost of living constitutes the most prominent issue in the elections, saying: “We must tell the truth to the American people.” "We keep telling them not to believe what their lying ledgers are showing them," he added on NBC's "Meet the Press."
Kennedy said: "The American people - from all walks of life - feel angry. If they do not feel angry, they feel deep sadness."
Multiple opinion polls support Kennedy's statements on the economy; In the latest CBS News poll conducted over the weekend, 70% of voters said Trump's policies are pushing prices higher. 56% also believed that Trump's policies are responsible for the current economic situation, while only 20% held Biden responsible. In an Associated Press-NORC poll last week, 69% of adults said Trump's performance on the cost of living was worse than expected.
Democrats have provided scant details about what they will do to lower the cost of living. But in a midterm election that is shaping up to be a referendum on an unpopular president, that may not matter.
Trump has complained that “no one is promoting” the fact that “there is no economy like this one.” However, he himself does not adhere to one fixed message; He appeared to post the cell phone number of Arkansas Republican Sen. Tom Cotton on social media on Saturday amid a row over daylight saving time.
On Sunday, he launched a scathing attack on Fox News for not adequately covering his election rally in Ohio. He also filled the Truth Social platform with photos of him with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, and artificial intelligence-generated photos calling for the annexation of Greenland.
An electoral map once thought to be problematic is now brimming with opportunity for Democrats
The Senate election map was once thought to be tilted in favor of Republicans, but it now appears more difficult for the party that currently controls the House of Representatives and the Senate, thus monopolizing power in Washington.
On Friday, the Republican super PAC halted its spending on a Republican-held seat in North Carolina, where Republican candidate Michael Whatley is trailing in the polls.
New opinion polls conducted by the New York Times in cooperation with the Siena Institute and published on Saturday showed Democrats leading in the electoral races for Senate seats held by Republicans in the states of Alaska and Texas. Polls also revealed that there was no clear leader in the electoral races in the states of Ohio, Kansas, and Iowa. These are results that will also please Democrats because these seats are currently occupied by Republicans, and because Trump has achieved landslide victories in them in 2024. The percentage of support for Trump’s economic performance ranged at or below the level of 40% in each of these states, and about half of the voters surveyed expressed their desire for a candidate capable of curbing Trump and exercising a monitoring role over him.
Other close electoral competitions are raging in the state of Michigan, where progressive Democrat Abdel Sayed seeks to preserve the seat of Senator Gary Peters, who intends to retire, for the benefit of the Democratic Party. And in Maine, where Democrats finally hope to wrest the seat from veteran Republican Senator Susan Collins.
In another danger indicator for the Republican Party, a new poll conducted by NBC and Telemundo on Sunday revealed that Hispanic voters prefer Democrats to win Congress by a margin of 24 percentage points. The percentage of support for Trump's overall performance does not exceed 27% among Latino voters, while 20% of them support his handling of the cost of living issue.
In the 2024 elections, Trump made historic inroads into almost all segments of the Latino community, raising the hopes of some Republican strategists for a permanent shift in the loyalty of this electoral bloc. But the White House's aggressive deportation campaign has sparked a backlash. In states with very close races, such as Texas, where Democratic Senate candidate James Tallarico is raising hopes of his party's first statewide victory in more than 30 years, the shift of Latino voters away from Trump could be critical.
Voter attitudes can change in the final weeks before the election, and Trump insists that pollsters are consistently underestimating support for the Make America Great Again (MAGA) movement. It would not be surprising if key races become closer, especially if Trump's base rallies to support him one last time.
During his rally in Alabama, Trump appealed to Americans to realize that he had achieved “amazing progress,” promising them “new levels of greatness.”
But the evidence that there is nationwide concern about the cost of living is overwhelming. Given that Trump has pledged to address this issue in 2024, the election outcome may hinge on a simple question: Will voters believe his promises of a “golden age”?
