In the United States, the reds are the conservatives. The color red is used to identify Republicans and blue is used for Democrats. To the chagrin of the country's president, the poll map for the midterms is full of blues. The midterm elections are held on November 3 and the polls say that Donald Trump is going to lose control of the House of Representatives and that the battle is very close for the Senate.
The midterms are almost always a referendum on the president and his party. In that sense, the real estate magnate's star seems to be fading and his popularity is at a minimum. Even a "friendly" network like Fox News shows, according to its latest survey, that 64% suspend Trump and only 36% approve of his work. There are 28 points difference.
Trump's approval was around 42% when, in January, the president decided to attack Iran in collaboration with Israel. Shortly after, his popularity fell below 40%. Then came the rise in oil and the rise in fuel prices. Today, for example, the NBC News poll says that only 38% approve of the Republican's performance and 60% suspend him.
Eight years ago, Trump's approval rating was considerably higher at this point in his first term: 43%. Joe Biden's, at the same time during his term, was 40%. But, as BBC News recalls, in both cases, the sitting president lost control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, but managed to retain the Senate.
In 2026, analysts predict that Democrats will take the majority in the House of Representatives. But the surprise may come in the Senate. There, the race is especially close after registering results favorable to Democrats in traditionally Republican territories.
As an example, Texas. A Democrat has not won a Senate seat in that state since 1988. That's 38 years. The demoscopy says that the Democratic losing streak can be broken on November 3. James Talarico, a former teacher, can beat Ken Paxton, the state's current attorney general and close Trump ally. The latest survey, the one from InsiderAdvantage last Wednesday the 15th, says that the Republican only leads the Democrat by 1 point.
Democratic victory in the Representatives
In these midterm elections, the 435 seats in the House of Representatives are contested. In most districts there will be no battle, since the party that occupies them has such solid support that it can only be expected to repeat. Only 21 districts are considered truly contested, according to the Cook Political Report, which analyzes campaigns and elections.
Of those 21 seats, 15 are currently held by Republicans and six are held by Democrats. If Democrats win five of them, plus the 28 districts classified as "likely Democratic," they will gain control of the House of Representatives.
The most close districts, according to the polls, are the 6th in Arizona, the 22nd in California, the 8th in Colorado, the 2nd in Iowa, the 17th in New York, the 4th, 7th and 10th in Michigan, the 11th in North Carolina, the 7th in Ohio, the 8th in Pennsylvania, the 15th in Texas, the 1st and 2nd in Virginia, the 3rd in Wisconsin, 14th, 22nd and 25th in Florida, 1st in North Carolina, 9th in Ohio and 34th in Texas. Only the last six are currently Democratic seats.
Two polls on Thursday confirm the forecast: the Democratic Party will regain control of the House of Representatives. The AP/NORC poll predicts that Democrats will win 47 seats to 38 for Republicans. Fox News makes a different distribution, 54 versus 45, but confirms the 9 seats difference in favor of the blues.
But something is working in Trump's favor. There are not as many clearly "vulnerable" targets as in other midterm elections, according to calculations by the University of Virginia Politics Center. That is, Republicans are defending in 2026 an unusually small number of seats in the House of Representatives that voted against the president in 2024 or that supported him by a very narrow margin.
"The battle for the House in 2026 is shaping up to be a clash between an irresistible force — the pro-Democratic momentum generated by Trump's high disapproval rating — and an immovable object: the unusually high number of Republicans entrenched in deeply conservative districts," writes Ronald Brownstein on CNN News.
The closest battle for the Senate
Closer is the fight for the Senate where the Republicans have greater control. They occupy 53 of the 100 seats, while the Democrats have 45, in addition to two independents who also vote with them.
On 3-N, 35 of the Senate seats are at stake, but, according to Cook Political Report, there is only a real battle in seven. Of these seven, six are currently Republicans: Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Ohio and Texas. Only one is Democratic: Michigan.
