The following is a lightly edited transcript of the September 29 episode of the Daily Blast podcast. Listen to it here.
Greg Sargent: This is The Daily Blast from The New Republic, produced and presented by the DSR Network. I’m your host, Greg Sargent.
We’re a little more than a month out from the midterms, and the GOP leaks of panic and fear are unlike anything we’ve seen in some time. Words like “wipeout” are filling press reports. When a GOP pollster privately told Republicans things might be OK, he was mocked by Republicans themselves as delusional. Trump himself has erupted repeatedly in the last few days in an angry panic about what’s coming. But all this bad news for Trump and the GOP is getting us nervous about Democratic and liberal overconfidence.
So to see where voters really are right now, we’re checking in with Melissa Toufanian, the executive director of the progressive group Navigator Research, which has done interesting polling lately on public sentiment about Trump. Melissa, thanks for coming on.
Melissa Toufanian: Thanks so much for having me.
Sargent: So let’s start with some of these leaks. One Iowa Republican strategist told The Washington Post that this midterm could rival the Dem rout in 2006, saying, “it feels like it could be a wipeout.” Lots of stuff like that coming out of Iowa.
Melissa, that’s striking. Trump carried Iowa by double digits. It’s heavily rural. What do you make of those Republicans’ fears?
Toufanian: It’s funny to hear that, because I was just in Iowa a few weeks ago, and I sat down with two different focus groups with farmers. So these farmers were mostly lean Republicans, strong Republicans. Almost all of them voted for Trump. And what we heard from them is that Trump’s tariffs, and the market volatility caused by those tariffs, is a huge pain point for them.
I mean, they were really upset about diesel prices. If we’re looking at diesel prices now, we’re looking at a cost per gallon of over six dollars and fifty cents. What we heard from them is that’s up more than three dollars from last year. And what that translates to for Iowa farmers, and farmers across the country, is they’re going to be spending thousands of dollars more this harvest season, which is right around the corner, running combines and working in their fields. So that’s a huge pain point that even Trump supporters, Trump voters, are feeling.
Sargent: And are these Trump voters who are speaking to you guys in focus groups, are they blaming Trump for the situation? What’s the nuance there?
Toufanian: It’s a great question. It was mixed. So again, the groups being more lean to strong Republicans, I mean, some were defending Trump. Some said when it comes to tariffs—some said, you know, he’s playing 40 chess. He’s got this long-term plan, this idea of short-term pain. We’re paying higher costs now, but it’s going to be long-term gain. That these tariffs are going to even the playing field when it comes to trade.
So there was that group. But then there was a far more pessimistic group that said, like, I don’t think he has a plan. I don’t think there’s a grand strategy whatsoever. I’m just feeling it in my business, in my family’s expenses. All I’m getting are higher costs.
Sargent: And you probably don’t need much erosion among those people in order to make a real difference, but I want to come back to that. In a series of posts on Truth Social over the last couple days, Trump has really been losing it. I’m just going to read from one here.
First, he talks about how stupendous the economy is, then says:
“Because no one ever wants to give me credit, no one is talking about these Historic Numbers. The FAKE NEWS and DUMOCRATS hate these reports and these record-setting numbers. They hate the TRUTH. Just look at these numbers, THE BEST IN HISTORY. VOTE FOR REPUBLICAN AND ‘TRUMP’ CANDIDATES IN THE MIDTERMS.”
The stuff at the end there about voting for Republicans is in caps. He’s really, really, really starting to unravel, I think. Melissa, your outfit polled recently in a bunch of states that Trump carried by large margins. What did you find?
Toufanian: So we recently polled in Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, and Texas—four states with key battleground Senate races. And across all four states, which Trump won by double digits in 2024, he actually has a net approval of negative 14.
He’s underwater in each of those states. And looking at Iowa in particular, he is most underwater. He’s underwater by 17 points. So in states that helped him get back to the White House, people are now deeply pessimistic about how he’s handling the economy, his job overall as president, and especially the war with Iran.
He’s got 57 percent disapproval in Alaska, 58 percent disapproval in Iowa, 56 percent disapproval in Ohio, 56 percent disapproving in Texas.
Sargent: I think it’s worth underscoring how red that territory is. You know, this cycle is a weird one, where all of a sudden we’re talking about places like Iowa and Texas flipping. But that’s, like, really crazy.
OK, I mean, these are places that Trump won by huge margins. They are Republican states, they are red states. Melissa, can you talk about how long progressives have looked at states like these as being completely out of reach?
Toufanian: Yeah. And these states—Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, Texas—I mean, they’re Republican-controlled states. And Republicans have held power for a very long time. People in these states, looking at our data, looking at other polling, have been really down on Democrats.
They voted for Republicans, and even in our own data, we see they’re still pessimistic on the Democratic Party. They’re not sure if Democrats can deliver for them. At the same time, they’re down on the Republican Party.
An interesting trend that we saw in the data is there’s a growing number of people who, when we ask about party trust—which party do you trust more to deliver on the issues you care about most?—we’re seeing a lot of people in that “neither party, don’t know” category, meaning that they’re feeling frustrated about politics in America right now, and in our political parties and our political system.
Sargent: In a midterm election, voters like that who are profoundly disgusted with the system are going to turn on the party in power, and hopefully, for the first time, open their ears in a new way to Democratic and progressive policy ideas. Is that something you think might be going on?
Toufanian: No, I think you raise a really good point. There are really two things that we’ve been keeping an eye on from Navigator. So the first is kind of that intensity of disapproval. So take a state—we’ve been talking about Iowa, right?
Let’s take a state like Iowa. Sixty percent of Iowans disapprove of how Trump’s handling the economy, but that includes 50 percent who strongly disapprove. So it’s not just people feeling a little frustrated or a little pessimistic. There’s this intense disapproval of how Trump is handling the presidency, and how he’s handling the economy.
I think the other piece that we’ve been tracking closely at Navigator is this what we call gap in focus. So this idea, in every single survey wave—so every single month, we ask Americans, what do you want your elected officials, the president and Congress, to focus on? And then, what do you think Trump and Republicans in Congress are most focused on?
So wave after wave, it’s the pocketbook issues. People want a focus on inflation and the cost of living, jobs and the economy, health care, Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. Those are always at the top.
When we ask people, what do you think Trump and Republicans in Congress are focused on? Overwhelmingly, it’s immigration, foreign conflicts. And if you notice, what I said people want their elected officials to focus on is not at all what they perceive Trump and Republicans in Congress focusing on.
In fact, in the battleground—so in that battleground polling I mentioned—we actually see that only 2 percent of people in the battleground perceive Trump and Republicans focused on health care, when we know that’s a top issue for Americans.
Sargent: OK, so in all four battlegrounds, only 2 percent think that Trump and Republicans are focused on health care?
Toufanian: Yeah, it’s almost nothing. What we hear in our focus groups, I mean, across different partisan ideologies—Democrats, Republicans, independents—they just want their elected officials to deliver for them. They just want to feel like they are actually working every single day to make their lives better, and that they have their best interests at heart. They don’t want to feel like their elected officials have been bought out.
In talking about those Iowa focus groups that I mentioned that were with farmers, one farmer said, you know, our elected officials, they go off to Washington, I think they should wear a NASCAR jacket that shows you who they’re sponsored by. And they just—this feeling that they don’t have their interests at heart, and that they’re not delivering for them.
Sargent: And it seems to me that you’ve got these Democratic candidates who are laser-focused on the affordability stuff. And in fact, Trump rages about this constantly, saying it’s a hoax when Democrats talk about it. But for some of these voters, they’re hearing Republicans defend Trump’s record, and they’re hearing Democrats talk about affordability. Is that more or less what’s happening?
Toufanian: I mean, what they’re telling us is the most important issue is affordability, right? So I think it’s extremely important, no matter what the party, to talk about these cost-of-living issues, because that’s where people are struggling. I mean, across our data, whether it’s in our data or in our focus groups, I mean, we’re hearing about people who are skipping meals.
We have a report coming out this week talking about people who are eating less, skipping meals so their kids can eat. I mean, really struggling. We did polling a few months ago where one in 10 people told us that they are selling their blood plasma just to make more money.
So the most important thing for any elected official that I can glean from our data is to connect with people on the issues they care about most, and that is absolutely cost of living.
Sargent: And it seems to me that in this environment, what you’re hearing from Trump is just almost tailor-made to drive people away from Republicans. Because you’ve got Trump raging constantly that it’s just a hoax when people say the economy is not working well. One thing he said on Truth Social is, he quoted Fox saying, “the United States has the best employment numbers in history.”
And then he said: “The Fake News Media REFUSES to report this rather significant development, however!!!”
He repeats this over and over and over. Affordability’s a hoax. Best economy ever. How does that stuff land?
Toufanian: And the irony is, if you look back to the Biden administration, that something that everyone should take note of is, when people are feeling a certain way, when people are upset, when they’re struggling, if you tell them, actually, just look at the numbers, we’re doing great—I mean, it doesn’t work.
And so the irony is, we’re seeing that now, that people are telling us in our data, in our focus groups—you know, just go talk to people at the grocery store, I’m sure they’re going to tell you the same thing, that they’re just really struggling.
And so to be told that their concerns and their worries, especially when it comes to their personal financial situation, to how they’re going to take care of their families—to say that that’s a hoax, I mean, it doesn’t land with people. It doesn’t resonate at all. And if anything, it just adds to their anger and frustration about elected officials in the political system.
Sargent: Well, these Republican leaks are getting worse and worse and worse. I’m just going to read some more. There was an Axios report in which a pollster for Senate Republicans told GOP donors and operatives that they might be able to grow the majority. And one attendee called this, quote-unquote, “delusional.”
Toufanian: I think that the other piece that we’re seeing that should be a warning sign, to show just how disconnected this is, is now we’re seeing Republican defections on support for the war with Iran. Because in our polling, that shows that is one of the issues that people are opposed to. They don’t think it was worth it.
They know it’s raising their fuel costs, which people are filling up the tank to go to work, drive their kids to school every single week. And so that’s a cost that they are continuing to see is so much higher than even just a year ago.
Sargent: Well, let’s talk a little bit about what your firm has found in terms of why people are really rejecting Trump. It’s a complicated thing, right? It isn’t just the economy. You guys polled on what you called Trump regretters, who are voters who regret their support for Trump in the past. What’d you find there?
Toufanian: So we found that about one in five people who voted for Trump in 2024 now regret their vote. And also, when we look a little bit under the hood at the numbers behind that, it’s younger voters, it’s voters of color, it’s even white suburban moms who regret their vote at a higher level than men. So there are definite cracks in that coalition that Trump brought together to win in 2024.
And then when we ask them, you know, why do you regret your vote, what started to make you feel that way—the major answers are broken promises, the war with Iran, and high prices. A lot of times people are just telling us that the economy isn’t working. Trump said that he would keep us out of wars. We’re in another one.
And when you cite the fact that their estimates—the war’s cost, you know, over forty billion dollars—people are thinking, you know, why are we spending forty billion dollars on the war, yet I can’t have Medicaid or SNAP here at home? So it just doesn’t add up for people.
Sargent: Right. I don’t think anybody understands why the hell he’s doing this in Iran. And I think that really cuts very, very deep for him.
Toufanian: Absolutely. I mean, the war with Iran, we’ve been tracking since, you know, even before the U.S. and Israel launched attacks in Iran. And it’s only grown more and more unpopular. We’ve continued to track, do you think this war was worth it?
And even more and more people, especially independents—which, you talk about, that is a key category to keep an eye on right now—even independents are becoming more pessimistic about the war. And we found, when you remind people of the costs, they turn even more negative on it.
Sargent: It’s really interesting that you found very pronounced regret for support for Trump among these demographics, like young voters, nonwhite, working-class, I guess you said, right? And white suburban moms.
Toufanian: Yeah, we said the highest level are people of color, our young voters. Even white suburban moms was one group. It’s really moms—moms regret their vote at a higher level than dads. So there’s some very interesting pieces kind of within that overall number.
Sargent: And in that finding, I think you can really see the MAGA coalition dissolving, can’t you? Because it’s the young voters, it’s the nonwhites, it’s the white women, who just sort of took a flyer on Trump in 2024 because of the economy. They took a risk. They weren’t really ideologically MAGA people in any real way. They just, I guess, forgot what Trump did to the economy in 2020—but whatever, that’s another story.
And they decided that the business guy could really snap his fingers and get stuff moving again. And those are the people that are moving away from him now. That’s the MAGA coalition kind of coming apart, isn’t it?
Toufanian: Yes. I mean, I think people took a chance in 2024. I mean, we still had high levels of inflation, costs were still up. I say this as someone who served in the Biden administration. Like, we had the—the economy still wasn’t doing well, it was doing better than during COVID, but it wasn’t yet at a place where people could feel like they were getting ahead. Now it’s even worse. Now people—not only do they feel like the economy isn’t working, they have even higher levels of disapproval about it.
We also, on top of that, have ICE and immigration enforcement that they’re seeing that is driving disapprovals, especially among Latino voters. We spoke with several different groups of Latino voters who now regret their vote for Trump. And I mean, the regret was so deeply palpable, in these kind of heartbreaking stories of them talking about coworkers or, you know, family members who have been deported. And they said, you know, this is not what I voted for.
Sargent: It is what they voted for, in the sense that Trump said he was going to do that. They just didn’t really hear it, is what I think happened.
Toufanian: I mean, the other interesting piece too is that, you know, from Navigator, we break out MAGA Republicans, which is, you know, in some ways kind of this immovable coalition that they stick with Trump through everything. And then we say the non-MAGA Republicans. So it’s self-identified people who don’t identify within the MAGA wing of the party.
So within that non-MAGA Republican group, it’s one in four who say they regret voting for Trump. So even to have that crack within the Republican Party, I mean, that’s really significant.
Sargent: Yes. And that’s how you can see your way to a wave election, right? Like, I just want to stress for people, you know, we’re still a month out. Things can go wrong. The polling could be wrong. You never know. But the data points we’re seeing right now are that Donald Trump is sliding in approval fairly steadily. He’s at 35 percent or under in some of the approval averages.
Dems are leading in the generic ballot matchup by eight, nine points, depending on the averages. All indications are that that’s growing. People like James Talarico have led in just about every poll in a state like Texas. We’re seeing people like Josh Turek in Iowa leading in some polls. Sherrod Brown leading in most polls in Ohio, which Trump turned red. This is extraordinary stuff.
So just very bluntly, as a public opinion researcher yourself, do you think that what you’re seeing in all this data out there in the public realm—do you think it’s close to right or not?
Toufanian: I think so. I think the only word of caution that I would add, though, is, in our polling, when we look at whether it’s party trust or which party is better positioned to handle different issues—while we’re seeing a pretty even split between people who say they trust the Democratic Party more on, let’s say, lowering costs, versus those who say they trust the Republican Party more, those are pretty even.
But there is that about one in four people, sometimes as high as one in three, who just don’t trust either party. So I think the polling and the data may absolutely be correct as far as the results for the midterms and the direction in which we’re heading. But I would just say, the day after any elected official wins, you’ve got to start working on how to deliver.
And actually, in my mind, in some ways, just as important as winning is being able to deliver—to actually show that you understand these concerns that we’re hearing, that they’re not a hoax, as Trump said, and to actually show people that you can make their lives meaningfully better.
Sargent: Right. All these dynamics can turn against Democrats real quick. We just saw them against Democrats two years ago. So I think maybe the way to understand the fact that both parties are roundly disapproved of by voters is to look at some of these individual Democratic candidates.
James Talarico in Texas, Mary Peltola in Alaska, Sherrod Brown in Ohio, Roy Cooper in North Carolina, Josh Turek in Iowa. These candidates seem like they are able to outrun their party in some way, because they’re strong personalities. They’re doing what it takes—even if I don’t like to see it sometimes—they’re doing what it takes to distance themselves from progressivism and the Democratic Party, the national party.
Does that look like what’s happening? I know you don’t poll on this stuff yourself, but as someone who follows this stuff as an educated consumer, do you think that these Democratic candidates probably are outrunning their party? Is that the dynamic?
Toufanian: I think that can be true, right? Let me just full-stop there. I think, at the same time, what we are just seeing is that Trump might not be on the ballot—that’s what a lot of, you know, people point to—but Trump and the Republican Party are so deeply unpopular that I think it’s important to see almost a multifaceted equation to get there, right?
That, like, what you said can absolutely be true. At the same time, there’s just, like, the fact that Republicans in Congress are not seen as focusing on the issues that Americans care about the most. And at the same time, again, in our battleground polling, Americans in those battleground states blame Republicans for this economy. They’re not pointing—you know, the majority of them are not pointing to the Biden administration. They’re pointing to their elected officials.
So I think it’s the disappointment, resentment, you know, outright outrage at the current electeds, and the hope that someone else can deliver. The desire for change is unbelievably high.
Sargent: Right. It seems like there’s a bunch of things that are lining up in a row that have to line up in a row. And right now they are. Melissa Toufanian, really great to talk to you. Thanks so much for talking to us.
Toufanian: Thanks for having me.
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