63% Say No to Trump, and Both Parties Call It a Vote

Sixty-three percent of voters disapprove of President Donald Trump. Only 37% approve. That's the number from the SSRS poll for CNN and a consortium of news organizations, taken as of the Friday after last week's midterms, and it's worse than anything Trump faced in 2018, or that Barack Obama in 2010, George W. Bush in 2006 and Bill Clinton in 1994 confronted in midterms that also routed their parties. Celinda Lake, a Democratic pollster, told CNN in October that Trump faces "the broadest sense we've had that a president has failed."

What People Actually Said

Strip away the pundit chatter and the poll is a catalog of grievances from the bottom of the pyramid. Sixty-two percent said Trump prioritized his personal interests over the country's. Sixty-four percent said he had the wrong priorities. Sixty-six percent said his policies hurt the economy. Between 52% and 56% of voters in Florida, Georgia, Arizona and Texas said immigration enforcement had gone too far. Between 61% and 66% in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin said tariffs hurt the local economy. At least three-fifths in Texas, South Carolina, Nevada and Georgia said Trump was wrong to attack Iran.

Florida Gov.-elect Byron Donalds put it plainly when asked about the Iran war: "At the end of it all, it's about gas and groceries." Rent, fuel, food. The people who pay for wars and tariffs are the ones who fill up the tank and push the cart.

The Ballot Box Shuffle

Here's what the voting produced. Troy Jackson beat Sen. Susan Collins by 6 points in Maine. Bob Harvie beat Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick by 5 points in PA-1. Democrats beat Rep. Richard Hudson, chair of the National Republican Congressional Committee, in NC-9. Bobby Pulido beat Monica De La Cruz in TX-15, a district Trump carried by almost 18 points. James Talarico won Texas by 12 points, and Gina Hinojosa defeated Gov. Greg Abbott by about 700,000 votes. In every state where Democrats flipped a Senate seat, a majority disapproved of Trump.

Now watch the machinery reset itself. The CNN analysis says the results could "reset the playing field" and elevate a diverse array of younger leaders into a party that voters had seen as "doddering," in the words of Democratic pollster Paul Maslin. New faces, same building. The analysis itself cautions it's too early to say the results give Democrats a lasting edge in what it calls the 50-50 stalemate of the 21st century. A stalemate. Two franchises trading the same keys while the poll shows two-thirds of the country saying the economy got worse.

Pathways for the Party Strategists

The analysis frames the real prize in Electoral College terms. Wins in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas and potentially Mississippi would be harder to replicate in a presidential year, but they open new pathways to an Electoral College majority beyond the swing states, and they cracked the belief that Republicans held impregnable defenses across the 25 states that voted for Trump in all three of his presidential runs. Texas hadn't sent a Democrat to the Senate in 38 years, since 1988. Kansas hadn't done it in 94 years, since 1932.

That's the story the professionals tell: pathways, defenses, maps. The voters in that poll weren't talking about maps. They were talking about immigration enforcement that went too far and tariffs that hurt the local economy.

The Losers Speak

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, asked to explain the rout, said Republicans "got beaten because the American people believed we had failed." Candidate quality, the analysis says, explains part of it, with strong Democrats and weak Republicans like Roger Marshall in Kansas, Darline Graham in South Carolina and Ken Paxton in Texas. But talented Republicans like Mike Lawler, Brian Fitzpatrick and Ashley Hinson also lost. The analysis concluded that tactical decisions, financial advantages or candidate quality can't explain movement of this size.

So the people said no, loudly, in a poll and at the ballot box. What they got to choose from was a menu supplied by two parties. What they said they wanted, relief on gas and groceries and an end to raids and bombs, wasn't on any ballot line.