Transcript: Trump Hits Record Poll Low amid Fresh Leaks of GOP Panic

The following is a lightly edited transcript of the September 23 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’ve been talking a lot about the polling on here because it’s crunch time now, and we’ve got some really striking new data to look at. Donald Trump’s approval just hit another record low in the polls. On the Iran war, he’s absolutely collapsed, and his tariffs are in deep trouble too. Meanwhile, Republican leaks are getting worse. Operatives are privately admitting that the bottom is falling out for the party. So here’s our question: Is it really this bad for Trump and Republicans, or is it a mirage that will soon get swamped by GOP spending?To figure it out, we’re talking to veteran North Carolina Democratic operative Morgan Jackson, who’s on the Roy Cooper campaign, about what he’s seeing on the ground. Morgan, thanks for coming on.Morgan Jackson: Absolutely, Greg. Great to be with you.Sargent: So let’s start here. A new Reuters poll finds Trump’s approval nationally down at 32 percent. That’s a record low in Reuters polling for Trump’s two terms. I don’t know if it’s that low, Morgan, but the FiftyPlusOne polling averages have him at 35 percent. So it’s plausible that he’s heading down into the low thirties. Morgan, what’s your sense of where the president really is right now?Jackson: So I think first and foremost, Greg, the president is in trouble, and he’s dragging down every Republican on the ballot. What we’re seeing, and I think what we see at every date—and the president was just here in North Carolina campaigning. And look at the kind of things that follow the president here. One of the things he talked about was the war in Iran. He talked about gas prices, and how glad people were to be paying for higher gas prices. He talked about North Carolina, a state that he’d won three times, being the worst state in the nation. These are not things that help Michael Whatley, who is running for Senate in North Carolina.And what we continue to see out from Trump’s numbers—you talked about his overall numbers, but his numbers with unaffiliated voters are even worse than his overall numbers. I don’t know, Greg, that in the 30 years I’ve been in this business that I’ve seen a public official have worse numbers with unaffiliated voters. And as we know, North Carolina, as in a lot of these states, unaffiliated voters now make up the largest constituency, the largest number of registered voters.Sargent: His collapse with independents is an extraordinary story, still unregistered by the mainstream media, in my view. Morgan, didn’t the president come down there and also kind of make fun of disaster relief and joke about it in some sense? I mean, that can’t play very well there.Jackson: No, it can’t. And what I’ll tell you is he said, we’ve given you some money from FEMA, you want two or three billion dollars more—if Michael Whatley wins, I’ll give it to you. If he doesn’t, I won’t. And he paused, and then he joked, then he laughed, said, that was a joke. But I don’t think anybody thinks disaster recovery is funny. I don’t think holding back federal dollars from a state that desperately needs it is funny. I don’t think cracking about hurricane recovery relief with your self-appointed hurricane czar in Michael Whatley—FEMA czar—who’s been absolutely AWOL in western North Carolina, is a joke.Sargent: Well, yeah, and also this is something that really hit western North Carolina very hard, and that’s deep red territory. We should note that Trump’s drop in the Reuters poll is fueled by his slide among Republicans. In this poll, he’s only at 73 percent approval with them. That is catastrophic for them, if that’s anywhere close to right. And I will say, Republicans are publicly acting as if this is the problem. They’re acting as if he’s badly got to get Republicans excited about him again. You spend a lot of time in red, rural North Carolina. What are you seeing candidly in these areas with regard to Trump support?Jackson: So I think there are two challenges that Republicans have right now. I think the very first challenge is they have a base that is not enthusiastic about this election. They are not enthusiastic about Trump. Now think about the Trump coalition that powered him to victory in all seven battleground states in 2024. A lot of the folks that drove the Trump coalition—and especially the folks that had switched from sort of traditional Democratic support, lower-income, non-college-educated working people—those are the folks who, when you think about high gas prices, high utility bills, high grocery bills, are feeling it every single day, even worse than the rest of the population. And so when gas jumps up to four and five dollars a gallon, the guy who drives a truck for a living is the one who feels that way more than somebody who’s working an office job or doing something else.And so I think we’re talking about a lack of enthusiasm, because it is promises made and promises not delivered on, failed expectations. And I think those voters—Trump’s not on the ballot, which has generally been the one thing that turns them out. And you also have folks who feel like they were promised the economy was going to get better two years ago by Trump, and it has gotten worse for them and their families. And so, as we talked about, the first issue is enthusiasm with the Republican base in a midterm election. That is a critical time that you’ve got to have that enthusiasm to be successful. And then the other side of it is unaffiliated voters and independent voters who have an incredibly low approval rating of the president. Those two things create a real problem and a one-two punch for Republicans this cycle.Sargent: So you’re polling out in western North Carolina. That’s where Jamie Ager is the Democrat running. I think he might have a shot. That’s a tough race. I think it’s pretty close to double digits, a Trump district. What are you guys picking up from some of these Republican voters and some of these GOP-leaning independents? Are they basically saying, I’m just not coming out? What are you getting back?Jackson: So what we’re seeing is—one of the things, Greg, that we often poll on are to gauge enthusiasm. Not only do we screen you into a poll to ask you, are you a likely voter versus a registered voter, then towards the end of the survey, we ask you again about your interest in voting. And one of my favorite tools that we use a lot is asking people, on a scale of one through ten, you put a number beside it of how interested and motivated you are to vote. And when I look at the folks that say 10 only—you’re talking about a nine-point enthusiasm gap, where Democrats are nine points ahead of Republicans in the 10 voters, the most enthusiastic voters. When you look at the eight-through-ten voters, you’re talking about a six- to seven-point gap. That’s a huge enthusiasm gap between the parties. And if that holds, that can have catastrophic repercussions for Republicans this year.Sargent: Well, just to reiterate, Republicans themselves are very much acting as if Trump is dropping fast, including among GOP voters. One Republican from a red district told Politico: “The bottom is beginning to fall out.” Republicans also privately reported to Politico that they’re having serious problems in Ohio, Iowa, and Kansas—all states Trump won by double digits. And Politico reports that your guy, Roy Cooper, is ahead by double digits in private GOP polling. I just want to point out that if that’s true, if Roy Cooper is in the double digits there, then that’s when you see places like Ohio, Iowa, and Kansas suddenly become really gettable, right? Is it at double digits or not?Jackson: No, I don’t think it is. Listen, North Carolina is a 50-50 state. This, regardless of the public polls—and Greg, you and I have sort of talked about the history of Roy Cooper several times—people will remember that in the 2020 election, when he was running for reelection as governor, the public polls had him up nineteen points, and he won by three and a half. In 2016, when he beat Pat McCrory, the public polls had him up twelve, fourteen points, and he won by ten thousand votes.North Carolina’s going to be much tighter than that. I think the real question to me right now is, how do you deal with lack of Republican enthusiasm, lack of support from unaffiliated, but then you also have this massive cash infusion coming from Republican interest groups and special interest groups and independent expenditures out there.Even right now, we’re at Roy Cooper—we’re looking at a $25 million deficit, being outspent right now by Republicans. That’s a big deal. That’s a lot of money, and that does move voters. And so we’re continuing to push hard. We know this race is going to tighten with all this national spending they’re bringing. And we’re continuing to raise money and do everything that we need to do to remain competitive on the airwaves and in paid communication with voters.Sargent: So you guys don’t believe the Republican polling that Roy Cooper’s up double digits, then.Jackson: No, I don’t. I don’t. Sargent: And you know, they’re also thinking of pulling back in Georgia as well. So Republicans are saying, we’re cutting back in North Carolina, we’re cutting back in Georgia.Morgan, you’ve been someone who’s talked about the slow transition of North Carolina for a long time. It never seems to quite materialize, at least in the presidentials. Something similar is happening in Georgia. We’re seeing similar demographic shifts, another southern state. Can you talk about this change? Is what we’re seeing now a reflection of that? You know, Roy Cooper’s sizable lead—maybe not double digits, but sizable. Is it a reflection of this slow transition, or is it something more fleeting that Democrats won’t really be able to bank for a presidential year?Jackson: Listen, I think if we can win a Senate race in North Carolina, it’s a very big deal. It’ll be the first time—only the second time in 20 years—that we’ve been able to do that. And Greg, you and I have talked about this. When you look at the demographic changes of the next couple of years, especially when reapportionment and redistricting comes after the 2030 cycle, Democrats have to be focused on consistently winning places like North Carolina and Georgia if we want a chance to elect the president. That’s just a reality. If we want to be able to have a sustainable majority in the U.S. Senate, you’re going to have to hold the seats in Georgia and in North Carolina, because what we’re seeing out there in the Electoral College is a lot of blue states in the Northeast are losing population. And a lot of red states like Texas and Florida and others are rapidly gaining population. And the math is not going to work for us anymore if we don’t start consistently winning southern states. And Georgia and North Carolina are the two that are right there. And while Georgia was able to crack the code in 2020—we’ve fallen just short each time, but we believe putting a Senate seat in the bank this time puts us in much better stead for thinking about—we’ve got a U.S. Senate seat up in ‘28 and the presidential.Sargent: So you think that what you’re seeing right now actually reflects these ongoing changes, that there’s something really systemic or structural moving in Democrats’ direction? It’s not just Trump’s collapsing numbers, it’s not just something fleeting?Jackson: Well, it’s all of the things. Listen, when we see places like Raleigh and Charlotte and the greater triangle and the collar counties around Charlotte getting bluer and bluer and bluer from this influx of college-educated voters—the thing that’s held us just below the waterline, per se, the last several cycles, is that Trump has been able to ramp up this Republican turnout in red North Carolina, which is more rural and exurban, and they’ve outvoted their share of the electorate. And if we get to a place where blue North Carolina is actually voting its full share of an electorate, we’re going to start having better years and winning bigger races.But, you know, at the same time, we’ve been able to win the governor’s race, the lieutenant governor’s race, the attorney general’s race, the secretary of state, Supreme Court races, things like that. We just have had a challenge cracking the code at the federal level.Sargent: Well, Jamie Ager’s the Democratic House candidate out in North Carolina’s Eleventh District. That’s the western corner of the state. It’s right in Appalachia. It’s got Asheville there. Do you think Jamie Ager’s going to win that race or not?Jackson: I like it. If I was a betting man, I’d bet on Jamie Ager. Listen, that’s a place that—not only, you talked about a minute ago, Trump’s sort of teasing support for hurricane relief for western North Carolina. Not only is that not funny to them, that is incredibly politically hurtful to their candidate. We have to remember, the candidate who was on the ballot, the incumbent, withdrew from the race because he got investigated by Congress in a bipartisan way, was really smacked for his inappropriate relationships with his staff members, young female staff members, and advances towards them. And so they’ve been in a little bit of a free fall.But I think Jamie Ager is a great candidate, running a great race. The last thing I’ll say about that is, you’ve got to remember, there were two places in the entire United States, two regions, that Trump did worse in between 2020 and 2024. And one of those is western North Carolina, which I’ve always believed had a lot to do with the hurricane that had taken place a couple of months before then, and the disinformation by the Trump campaign at the time, when they were telling them FEMA was not helping you, when—people, FEMA was knocking on the doors. I think that hurt their credibility.Sargent: Well, I will say that MAGA Inc., which is Trump’s super PAC, is actually putting money into North Carolina’s Eleventh District. This is a district Trump won by 9.5 points. And look, if you’re winning North Carolina Eleven—I still think it’s very tough, but let’s just for the moment say you’re winning there—that is really a sign that you’re going to have a very good night for Democrats on the House level. And it’s probably worth pointing out, maybe you could comment on this: there really is sort of a perfect storm of things coming together that makes something like North Carolina Eleven sort of drift into the realm of the possible. I just want to stress for people, this is western North Carolina. This is a lot of rural North Carolina. It’s really Trumpy territory. Very hard for Democrats there. But Jamie Ager’s a family farmer. He’s a good candidate, and he fits the district perfectly. So all the pieces are there. I think it can’t be ruled out now. I mean, if Trump’s super PAC is spending there, they’re seeing something in the numbers too, right?Jackson: They are. You’re right, Greg. It’s an R-plus-nine district. And what happened is they had a very weak incumbent. And Jamie Ager is a phenomenal candidate, as you said, straight out of central casting, frankly, for that district. His family’s been on that farm for hundreds of years. And he’s exactly who you see in these ads: he is a straightforward kind of guy, and he’s a mountain guy, and you can tell it by talking to him. And one of the things he’s been doing over the last week I noticed was hosting barn dances all across the district. I mean, think about the cultural connection there. That’s incredibly good.And so Republicans have a candidate who’s only been on the ballot a month, that voters don’t know. You’ve got Jamie Ager, who voters do know. And for Democrats, that’s one of the places Democrats have been able to outspend Republicans, up until Trump has come in with this new money out there. So it’s going to be interesting to see how it unfolds. But Democrats clearly have the advantage right now. It’s, can we hold the advantage and push that advantage? And part of that is—we need help. We need help, people, from around the country investing in these races. Because Trump just dumped in over six million dollars over the last two weeks against Cooper. He dumped in over a million, million and a half, against Jamie Ager, separately than that, just in the last week.Sargent: That’s based on ad data, your own ad-tracking data?Jackson: Yes, that’s correct.Sargent: So you’re saying that Trump’s super PAC just put a million dollars into North Carolina Eleven?Jackson: I think it was a million and a half. It was close to that, yes.Sargent: Well, that’s really striking, because again, that’s a district Trump won by 9.5, western North Carolina, Appalachia. So that’s telling.So there’s not a lot of mystery as to why Trump is collapsing so badly: prices, tariffs, and war. Some new data on that as well. Reuters has Trump’s approval on cost of living at an extraordinary 17 percent. That’s not a typo. A new CNN poll has 70 percent saying his Iran war has hurt the U.S., and 76 percent saying the war isn’t worth the costs. And on tariffs, a new Suffolk poll in Michigan—which, let’s face it, very, very close, Abdul El-Sayed is up seven points, I really doubt it’s that high—but note that two-thirds, 67 percent, are concerned about the impact of Trump’s tariffs on Canadian cars, trucks, and auto parts. That’s the story right there, isn’t it? Prices, tariffs, war. Your thoughts?Jackson: It is. And I think what you see Republicans around the country trying to do is to change the narrative on voters. In North Carolina, they’ve tried to make this race about crime. You see other states, they’ve tried to make it about immigration, they try to make it about a lot of things. The reality of it is, voters are so laser-like focused on the cost of things—the price of groceries, the increased price of gas, your utility bill, your mortgage, your rent, your childcare. These are things that continue to grow in cost every single month. And families sit around the kitchen table on Friday night and Saturday night trying to figure out how they’re going to pay for their daily expenses, not some exorbitant vacation. And when Americans are feeling that way, somebody’s got to pay the price for that. And the people who they blame right now are the president.Listen, we lived on the other side of this two years ago, is that people were feeling really frustrated, really agitated, really unsafe in the economy due to increased inflation. And so they voted Donald Trump in to change the policies they thought of, of Joe Biden. And now they’ve figured out that not only are things just as bad, they’re a lot worse under Trump, after they thought he was going to fix it. And so there’s a lot of blame and a lot of regret going around.Sargent: Very briefly, what’s the map look like for Democrats more broadly, in your view? Is there a path to a Senate majority? What do you predict?Jackson: Absolutely, I do. Listen, I think when you see places like Texas, Kansas, Iowa coming online, Alaska, Ohio—none of these were close states in 2024 in the presidential. And these states, Democrats have small leads or are dead even. And a lot of prognosticators have ranked them toss-up seats. That’s a very big deal. That shows the mood of this country and where voters are—not just where Democratic voters are more excited, but the lack of enthusiasm from Republican voters, and, frankly, unaffiliated are just revolting against Trump at this point. And so I think all those things—and listen, we’re light years away from election day. We’re fifty, forty-some days away. And the reality is that things can change.Sargent: OK, so Democrats have to net four Senate seats in order to win the Senate. They have to flip four Republican-held seats. If you had to pick which are the four most likely, in your view?Jackson: So the four most likely—first of all, I’d start with North Carolina. It’s the place that if we’re going to win anywhere, we’ve got to win here. This is seat number one. I like our thoughts in Maine. I like Alaska. I think Sherrod Brown is running an incredible race in Ohio. But I also think—listen, I think Iowa, Josh Turek is running a great race and things are happening in Iowa. So we talked about Texas. These are places that are really challenging. And I think the good news for us, the best news for us, is there’s not just one path to get there. We’ve lived in an electoral environment where there’s only—we have to, if we don’t win this state, we’re done; if we win this state, we can’t get there. The reality of it is, we have multiple paths to get to the majority. We just need to close some of these races out.Sargent: Sure looks that way. Morgan Jackson, awesome to talk to you. Thank you so much for coming on.Jackson: Thanks, guys. Y’all take care.