Democrats head into midterms with a larger lead in the polls than ever

The blue line and the red line are moving slightly further apart. From September 1, the official start of the midterm campaign’s final stretch, until Monday, November 2, 2026, the eve of the elections, voting intention among Americans has risen by about three points in favor of the Democratic Party, according to poll averages.That lead is decisive: it is more than eight points on the generic House ballot, the closest thing to a general reading since it asks about the party rather than the specific candidates fighting hundreds of contests across the country. The picture is that of the so-called “blue wave” — although there are doubts about the accuracy of the polls — in an election the president has framed as a referendum on himself.He has repeated it at each of the 28 rallies he has held in the past two months, beginning with the unprecedented Republican convention he staged in September in Dallas, the first time one was held in a midterms year, dubbed Trumpapalooza. “Pretend I’m on the ballot,” has been the president’s mantra, placing blind faith in his ability to mobilize the base despite approval ratings barely above 30% in some polls (EL PAÍS’s aggregator places his popularity at 37%).Trump concentrated his events in states that, on paper, should be safe for Republicans, which has led analysts to offer different interpretations. Some say it is evidence of the weakness of the Trump brand and that strategists may be trying to keep him away from more competitive races.Others argue the opposite. With his appearances in Texas, Iowa, and Kansas — states that will decide the future of the Senate — the president’s campaign is read as a reaction to polls that are not as favorable as they should be.If the president has framed the midterm elections as a referendum on his movement, the Democrats have done the same.Democratic candidates have strengthened in the polls week after week, running campaigns focused on the president’s economic record, which has not eased Americans’ wallets as he promised in 2024, and on the war in Iran, which has raised fuel prices. Rampant corruption in the administration and within the president’s family has also gained traction as a voter concern.That roughly three-point shift could prove decisive because it makes a Democratic Senate majority possible, something that seemed fanciful a few months ago.It was always likely that the House of Representatives, where Republicans hold a slim majority — 218 seats versus 214 for the Democrats, one independent and two vacancies — would fall to the opposition; historically, the president’s party loses seats in midterm elections, when the entire lower chamber is renewed every two years. 2026 will be no exception. Polls project Democrats will pick up 18 seats, which would give them a comfortable majority. No forecast gives less than an 80% chance of a Democratic victory in the House of Representatives.The Senate, by contrast, only truly entered play after the primaries ended in the summer. Here the Republican edge seemed more secure, since Democrats would need to win back several states Trump carried by more than 10 points over Kamala Harris in 2024.But precisely the president’s unpopularity, together with a cohort of weak, handpicked Trump candidates in key territories — notably Ken Paxton in Texas and Darlene Graham in South Carolina — has made the map look much friendlier for Democrats and led polls here as well to forecast a blue majority.Aggregated polls project the Democratic Party will flip five Republican seats and place another five — all currently Republican — within the margin of error or in a technical tie. Experts warn that when polls are wrong, they tend to be wrong in a chain and to favor the same party.In these battles, the peculiarities of each contest make a general reading harder: voters’ concerns in Texas are far from those in Maine, at the other end of the country. Still, there is a thread of rather centrist pragmatism that ties together most of the Democratic candidates leading in the polls, from Adam Hamilton in Kansas to Mary Peltola in Alaska; with the single notable exception of Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive from Michigan who is seeking to become the first Muslim senator in the country’s history.However, developments in recent days could still change the picture. In Alaska, the saga triggered by a controversial Democratic maneuver could affect the party’s chances. The Justice Department requested that ballots for a candidate with the same name as the incumbent Republican senator seeking reelection, Dan Sullivan, be discarded. Then, The New York Times revealed that the entry of the second Dan Sullivan had been promoted by Democrat Peltola’s campaign. On Sunday a judge dismissed the Trump administration’s request to block the results, but the episode could still cost Peltola at the polls.And in Michigan, the loser of the Democratic primary, Haley Stevens, set off a political earthquake by publicly endorsing Republican candidate Mike Rogers over El-Sayed, with whom she fought a bruising primary. It was a surprise that ended days of vacillation, in which she first finally backed El-Sayed after months of silence, then retracted after he asked her not to appear with him at an event. Although El-Sayed leads the polls by more than three points, the break with Stevens could cost him some of her supporters.In general terms, however, Democrats are feeling undeniable confidence — “nauseously optimistic,” as Georgia Democratic Senator Raphael Warnock told CNN. Yet there is also a measure of caution, given doubts about polls and pollsters, who have failed so spectacularly on several occasions over the past decade, sometimes underestimating Trump’s electoral pull. The difference this time is that the Democratic lead is very sizable. So much so that even a two-point error in favor of Republicans would still result in Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress.Sign up for our weekly newsletter to get more English-language news coverage from EL PAÍS USA Edition