AILSA CHANG, HOST:
Republicans are fighting to maintain control of Congress in next year's midterm elections. But results from a new NPR/PBS News/Marist poll out today may complicate that game plan. President Trump is at his lowest approval rating in years, and voters around the country have low confidence in both major political parties. Here to talk about what this could all mean for 2026 is NPR political reporter Elena Moore. Hi, Elena.
ELENA MOORE, BYLINE: Hey there.
CHANG: Hey. OK. So let's start with Trump. He obviously is not literally on the ballot next year, but this is his Republican party after all. So how does it seem Americans are feeling about his job performance almost a year in?
MOORE: Well, it certainly doesn't help his party that Trump is losing ground with some Americans. He's got a 39% job approval rating among national adults, according to this latest poll. That's the lowest rating, Ailsa, since shortly after the attack on the Capitol on January 6. Plus, he's particularly struggling with independents - less than a quarter approve of his job performance in office.
CHANG: Well, did you get any sense of what exactly voters want to see from Trump going forward?
MOORE: More than half said he should prioritize lowering prices, and that includes 4 in 10 Republicans, by the way, like 26-year-old Jesse Green, a Trump voter in Lexington, Kentucky, who responded to NPR's survey. He told me he slightly disapproves of Trump's job performance so far and wanted to see him really address inflation by cutting federal spending.
JESSE GREEN: I think he has done some good in some other areas. But I think when you get to the bottom line, if families cannot afford to own homes and raise families and have kids, that's going to have a significant detriment on the future of our country.
MOORE: He worries about being able to afford those things himself, you know? But at the same time, he said, rising prices were already an issue before Trump's second term.
CHANG: True. Well, what about Congress? Like, how does it seem Americans are viewing both parties heading into the midterms?
MOORE: Well, a lot could change by November 2026, but currently, this poll finds that Democrats may have a leg up in their fight to retake power. We asked registered voters how they would vote on a generic congressional ballot if the election were held today, and Democrats hold a 14-point advantage compared to Republicans. That's the biggest advantage on this question in Marist polling since November 2017, before, you know, Democrats made gains in the 2018 midterms.
CHANG: Interesting. OK. That seems like a pretty good sign for congressional Democrats, but they have challenges, too, right?
MOORE: Yeah. National Democrats have been struggling for a long time, you know, with low approval ratings and a divided party. This poll, you know, shows that's still the case. Eighty percent of Republicans have confidence in the GOP. But Democrats - just 57% have confidence in their own party. Sixty-one-year-old Wayne Dowdy of Memphis, Tennessee - he calls himself a lapsed Democrat and told me that while he begrudgingly keeps voting blue, the party doesn't speak to him anymore.
WAYNE DOWDY: They don't interact with working people, regardless of whether they work in an office or on a job site or working in a factory. They don't know how people like that live. They have no connection to real people.
MOORE: He told me he's seen the party pay lip service to working folks, but it doesn't feel real to him.
CHANG: OK. Well, Elena, we are about a year out from the midterms. What do you think listeners should even take away from this poll at this moment?
MOORE: Well, we've seen in elections this year that when Democrats hone in on affordability, it does resonate. So I expect that to stay a priority. But on the other side of the aisle, they have a lot of work to do. A combined 6 in 10 blame congressional Republicans or Trump for the government shutdown. And even though the president has high support among Republican voters, I had multiple respondents tell me that, though they back Trump, it doesn't necessarily translate to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
CHANG: That is NPR's Elena Moore. Thank you, Elena.
MOORE: Thanks, Ailsa. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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