Democrats hold a hefty 14-point lead over Republicans among registered voters asked who they would vote for in generic 2026 midterm matchups, a new poll finds.
The polling, conducted by Marist, NPR and PBS, showed that 55 percent of registered voters say they would support a Democratic candidate for Congress in their district if the election were held today. Only 41 percent of voters said they would support a Republican.
That is the widest lead that Democrats have had on the generic ballot for the Marist poll since November 2017, according to NPR. The following year, Democrats would win back the House of Representatives when they picked up 40 seats.
Democrats also have a 33-point advantage with independent voters, the poll found, while only 28 percent of independents prefer Republicans.
Democrats last had this wide a lead in June of 2022, which came as the Supreme Court repealed Roe v Wade, which guaranteed a womanâs right to an abortion. Democrats had a 7-point lead in the generic ballot. Republicans ultimately won back the House majority in November of that year, but not by as wide a margin as previously expected.
The new polling comes after Democrats in California successfully passed Proposition 50, allowing them to redraw the congressional map to pick up five new congressional seats after Texas gerrymandered its map. On Tuesday, a federal court enjoined Texas from using its newly redrawn congressional map.
âI said from the very beginning that Republicans were not going to be able to successfully gerrymander their way into mathematically artificially holding their majority,â House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries told The Independent. âThat, in fact, has proven now to be the case.â
In addition, President Donald Trumpâs approval rating ticked down to 39 percent, down 2 points from September, and the poll found 56 percent of Americans disapprove of Trumpâs job performance.
Trumpâs approval among white people without a college degree fell by 3 points from September to 48 percent, while 48 percent disapprove. But his approval among Hispanics increased from 36 percent in September to 40 percent, but disapproval among Latinos increased by 2 percentage points to 54 percent.
Trump also saw his approval among white men without degrees go down from 51 percent in September to 48 percent in November.
This comes as Americans increasingly worry about the cost of living as Trump enacts his across-the-board tariffs. The poll showed that 57 percent of Americans say that the president should focus on lowering prices.
Earlier this month, Democrats blew out Republicans in races for governor in New Jersey and Virginia and public service commissioner in Georgia focusing primarily on affordability. But Trump has said that cost has gone down, despite all evidence to the contrary. Last week, Trump slashed tariffs on items including coffee, bananas and beef that he put in place earlier this week.
Trump has leaned heavily into foreign policy during his second tenure in the White House, hosting Vladimir Putin in Alaska and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Washington to bring an end to the war in Ukraine, and attempting to earn the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts to end the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza.
But only seven percent of voters believe that Trump should prioritize bringing an end to the war in Ukraine and six percent believe Trump should prioritize peace between Israel and Gaza.
In addition, Trump has ordered extrajudicial military strikes targeted boats supposedly smuggling drugs from Venezuela. But only 4 percent of voters say Trump should focus on eliminating drug traffic from Latin America.
The poll surveyed 1,443 adults between November 10th and 13th. It had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
