Trump Collapses Under Crashing Poll Numbers, He's in a Total Freefall

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1:11this morning i welcome andrew wilson who is the political director for the lincoln project and a nerdy pollster which i love so welcome thanks for being on good morning thank you for having me okay so many questions about all these numbers that we're seeing up like his approval rating is in the shitter yes if you'll pop up the latest one so overall approval 33 33%, Republicans inexplicably at 68%, Independents 23, and Democrats three. Talk about these numbers and if he can rebound from these numbers. Well, I'll tell you right off the bat, he cannot rebound from this. I can't think of a good example of a president rebounding from this kind of polling ebb.

1:57I've never seen it. But you pointed out Republicans especially, So they're at 68, 30-something approval. So it's interesting because for a very long time, Donald Trump has had this rock-solid hold on Republican voters. And you're not seeing MAGAs drop off. You are seeing MAGAs. They are a slightly smaller share of the Republican Party than they were in March. But you're seeing these non-MAGA Republicans really turning on Trump, and it comes down to the economy and Iran. It's pretty much that simple. And we'll keep seeing them fall off, right? They're not excited about anything that he's doing.

2:39They think he's distracted with the DC projects and the war in Iran. The ballroom. And so you saw independence on there. That is a devastating number for any candidate. If you're looking at 70 plus percent disapproval on any issue, on any candidate, you're screwed with independence. He, if you look at the whole matrix of issues with independence, it's two to one against on almost every single thing. And that was a huge part of his 2024 coalition. That's just gone now. And they were, people came out to vote for Trump that normally didn't come out to vote. And I've seen where the enthusiasm to go out to vote is much higher on the Democratic side.

3:23Are you tracking that? Yes, I am tracking that. In fact, I think that's probably the most important metric that we're seeing right now. You know, we're seeing these generic ballot numbers, which is when a pollster asks, are you going to vote for Republicans or Democrats sort of generically in November of 2026? And that has Democrats at about plus six in a lot of these aggregators. But I don't think that really captures how well Democrats are going to perform. I think enthusiasm is a much better metric. And you can see that play out in Texas, for example. James Tallarico is leading John Cornyn and Ken Paxson in a potential matchup.

4:01And that comes down to the fact that Republicans are demoralized across the board. They feel terrible. They don't want to get out and vote. MAGA Republicans were never really going to go out and vote in mass numbers because Trump's not on the ballot. That's really important to them. So Democrats just have a massive enthusiasm lead. Now, could they blow it? Could the leadership really stomp on it? They could absolutely blow it. And I don't want to make it sound like just because Republicans are in a really terrible position that Democrats are suddenly going to be winning all these elections. They really do have to play up the messaging on the economy.

4:37But enthusiasm is really on our side this time. I can tell you, a lot of these people you talked about who came over to vote for Trump and normally vote were voting with their wallets. They were thinking about inflation. They were thinking about the economy. And now they've seen what Trump has done. And it's completely reverse course. Which is music to my ears. Okay, Kylie, I know this is out of order, but pop up the James Tallarico, because here's the thing. In Texas, I watch Texas because I live in Oklahoma. But when I saw this, the hypothetical numbers that he is leading Corbin by seven and Paxton by eight, I was stunned by that.

5:21I am also stunned by this. This is Texas for just so everyone remembers. They keep putting Ted Cruz in office. You cannot trust these people. Yes. And, you know, this is this is one of the things that we've seen throughout this year, especially in Texas, is a lot of those Hispanic voters who came over to Trump. We were seeing last summer that they were already falling off in significant numbers from Republicans. And so one interesting thing that we've been looking at a lot is the redistricting in Texas. it's predicated on the idea that Republicans can hit the same number that Trump got in 2024 with Hispanic voters.

5:57All the polls say that's not possible. So what they've produced is another dummymander that actually might make it easier for Democrats to hold onto and pick up seats in Texas. Okay. I keep seeing this a lot with this gerrymandering, that they're going to pick up all these seats. And then I will see different things that say, well, actually, they're not going to pick up the seats that they thought they would, that these districts are redistricting, trying to get out the Democratic lean, but it's turning out through polling, the Democrats are still going to lead. Is that what you're seeing? Yeah.

6:38Florida is a great example of this. And there's a few reasons why. One is like, they've already gerrymandered the hell out of a lot of these states. And you can't necessarily squeeze them too hard. And what happens, especially in Florida, is you have these districts that have really strong Republican liens. But in order to make another Republican district, you have to take some of that constituency away. So the Republican liens in these districts become smaller and smaller, which it might create more Republican districts, But it does create more pickup opportunities for Democrats, too. And, you know, if you look at races like the Miami mayoral race, if you look at these special elections that we had in April, it's the idea that Republicans are going to defend themselves only by gerrymandering.

7:27I don't think it's going to work out. And you can see in the polling again, just when you lose that number of independents, you lose the sort of protective floor that you had to do these sort of dummy manders. It just, it comes back to bite you on the ass. And I think we're all blessed by the incompetence of the Republican Party in many ways. And Trump, if they were a slightly more evil and more competent party, I think we'd be in a lot more trouble. Which J.D. Vance is more evil and more competent. It's terrifying. It is terrifying. But I think the polling tells us something interesting about that.

8:04And there's some sort of cultural anecdotes here too. I think with Trump's approval where it is, where it's going, and we've thought for a long time that he had a floor and now he's below that floor in his polling. With where it's going, he's not a kingmaker anymore. He can't influence the future of Republican politics in 2028 like he wants to, I don't think. and you see that with somebody like tucker carlson um he cynically believes that trump has no more to give to the right-wing movement in the u.s which is probably true uh and that's why he's tossing aside it has nothing to do with you know some principled anti-war position it's all a cynical play and i believe it's about jd vance or marco rubio um but yeah jd vance is scary and evil but he is going to have to live with Trump's economic record, which the polling tells us is just nobody likes it.

9:00Well, and Trump fucks him over every single day, putting him in charge of fraud. Like, come on. Okay. Kylie, pop up the clip with the betting markets about the future 2028 candidate. It's number four. Okay. So here's the thing, which I don't give Kalshi a ton of, but it's where people's heads are. Sure. Okay. JD Vance, 37%, Marco Rubio, 25%, Tucker Carlson, seven, Donald Trump Jr. Five and Ron DeSantis four. I would hang my head down in shame and never come out of the fetal position. If Don Jr. was pulling ahead of me in any metric, That is so fucking embarrassing for Ronald Hantis. Oh, man. Oh, well, it's embarrassing.

9:50But boy, has he dealt with a lot of embarrassment in the last few years. I mean, if you remember his Republican, his bid for the Republican candidacy was just blunder after blunder. And of course, I think he's going to run again. I think he'll make another pass at it. Lord knows where he'll get the money. But, you know, Don Jr., he could run. He really could. He could probably energize the MAGA base. I think the one thing that's interesting is Trump's losing non-MAGA Republicans. And yeah, the share of MAGA Republicans has gone down, but he still has a very high approval rating with MAGAs. And they're still out there.

10:27Although he's just facing like a historical problem where the base of MAGA is just getting older and older and it's slowly dying off. And we all talked about that in 2016. You know, eventually this coalition will die off and it's happening now. But poor Ron DeSantis. I mean, you almost feel bad for the guy, but. It's kind of impossible to feel bad for him. I mean, he's just so repulsive. Okay, that's an interesting point, because I worry, and we've talked about it a lot on this podcast, that the growing number of young people that are Nick Fuentes, Andrew Tate brothers, I mean, they're all in white supremacy, homophobic, misogyny, like they are the absolute worst bigots on the planet.

11:17So if you have the old MAGA dying off, this seems to be a pretty robust group. Are you seeing any numbers on that? Not necessarily. I do see why it's part of the conversation and it does make sense. It's not a high propensity voting group. So if they don't feel enthusiastic about voting for somebody, they won't come out and vote. I don't think a lot of these young men, the Nick Fuentes types, are excited about J.D. Vance. unfortunately i have seen some nick fuentes lately and he does not like jd vance um he calls him a fatty uh and all this all etc you know whatever racialized comments about his wife and all this stuff that's yeah um but you know that that's how the that's how that movement operates and i i it is a scary prospect because like i said with tucker it's a cynical play at these at these particular kind of voters they're young men they consider themselves independent they consider themselves anti-war.

12:13They consider themselves anti-Israel. And a lot of these Republican candidates and Republican influencers are seeing that, and they're taking advantage of it in a way that Democrats aren't necessarily able to do because we're having this conversation about Hassan Piker on this side. So they're not necessarily capitalizing on it, and they're letting some of these influencers and Republicans and conservatives run away with it in a dangerous way because they're obviously going to steer it into the real anti-Semitism and the scary Hitlerite shit that they do all the time. But, you know, this is another area where Democrats really need to step up and start talking about this in a substantial way, especially leadership.

12:54It's just unbelievable that they don't. And when you take like a snippet of a Candace Owens or a Tucker Carlson, Nick Fuentes, they make sense in that moment. You don't. If you just clip it, which people on social media, that's all they see is the 32nd where they make absolute sense. And when they're outpacing Republicans, especially leadership in messaging, like you fucking suck at messaging. Yeah. There's just no two ways about it. OK, and here's something I've been fascinated by since day one when Trump's approval rating started to really go down. Sure. These Republicans that have put up zero fight to him, they are now facing elections themselves.

13:40Are they ever going to cut bait with this? Well, actually, some of them have cut bait. Some of them have cut bait and run. There are more than 30, I think we're approaching 40 Republican congressmen who are either not running or resigning. Oh, right. Not seeking reelection. election. Because we're pussies and cowards. They won't just stand up and say, we're not doing it. They'll just slink off. Well, they're scary. They're going to blow all their cash and never have another chance to run again. And if I'm a Republican consultant, I might say, keep your powder dry and don't spend your money on this election because you're going to get blown out.

14:16The Republicans, the party in general, the base of the party who have gone along with all this, I just don't see the moral hangover coming. Instead, I think a lot of them are just going to start ignoring news like they did before. During COVID, it was a lot of the – you shut your ears to whatever you don't want to hear. And a lot of Republicans – there's a – I don't have the number right here, but there was a recent poll that found that a lot of Republicans find themselves ignoring news specifically about Trump. And that's what you'll get. The more they disapprove of Trump, the less they'll pay attention and the less likely they are to vote.

14:59So it's a bad recipe. If you're running for office as a Republican, you have no good options. Well, it's funny because I keep reading these articles that Susie Wiles is so mad because she wanted Trump to campaign for the midterms and give the economic message. And I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? That's all an astroturf. You know, we heard this in 2018, right? That Republicans were going to run on the platform. They were going to avoid Trump. And that was going to be their winning strategy. They said the same thing a few months ago, that they were going to avoid Trump and that, you know, they were just going to talk about the Republican Party platform, which, you know, I'm sure is just wildly exciting for voters.

15:43But that doesn't work. You can't do that with Donald Trump. He is at the center of the party at all times. You know, Republican politics is all about making Donald Trump happy. It's all about, you know, kowtowing to him on every issue. And, you know, the ads sort of write themselves for Democrats, right? Like we are looking at these 26 races that we're targeting. But just Eli Crane, for example, he's a Republican in Arizona. His district has a lot of ranching and logging and agricultural farming, stuff like that. A lot of those people are getting screwed because of the tariffs. He didn't do anything about that.

16:22And for a Democrat running against him, it's an easy layup. All you have to say is you're getting screwed because this guy didn't do anything about it. And I think a lot of Republicans see that. They see that they're going to get blown out. And that's why they're dropping like flies out of these elections. That's why they're looking at the same polls we are. They see the same numbers and they're terrified. Listener, I want to tell you about one of the most important things you can do to keep yourself informed and aware of the facts. And what we do here at IHIP News is we go to Ground News. Ground News is basically the Spotify of news telling you who owns each outlet, where it leans politically, and whether you're reading original reporting or recycled messaging.

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18:11By subscribing, you're not only getting a tool we all need today, you're also supporting our work. That's ground, G-R-O-U-N-D, news.com forward slash IHIP. Couple just pinpoint races. Sure. Lindsey Graham in South Carolina. Is there any way he will get beat? I wish I could say that's true. I wish I could say he could get beat. He has a – he's like Ted Cruz. He's got this power over these people. And there's a major incumbency bonus that you get for being in office for that long. And he's got money. He's got the Republican Party relatively behind him. But there is a world where some of these districts that look really safe for Republicans, these R plus 10 districts where Republicans have been holding the district since 1996.

19:08there's a world where we see some major upsets, some big surprises across the board. And, you know, there was the, I think Ken Griffin or Citadel CEO came out the other day and said, Democrats are almost certainly going to win the House. And I was thinking, wow, that's such a profound insight. So intelligent. I think the real, you know, I think what's really going to happen is Democrats are going to bring the Senate much closer. I think that is what we're looking at. I think it's, you know, Lindsey Graham, maybe. Do you think Graham Plattner will knock out Susan Collins? Yes, yes, absolutely. I'm very confident that Graham Plattner is going to win that race.

19:50You know, Mills dropping out was good for him, good for the party. You know, Mainers love him. If you look at the polls, you know, Mills wasn't unpopular. She was a popular governor, but she was over 80. and that's a big problem for a lot of voters these days. You know, Collins is extremely vulnerable and Republicans are going to have to start triaging with cash because so many of these races are at risk and, you know, Collins may not get enough money to stay competitive. Really? Yeah. Well, I mean, she'll get a lot of cash and Republicans are, of course, very flush with cash. But the spend is going to have to be much, much higher across the board because they are playing defense on so many more seats.

20:41Do you think that will come into the conversation in Texas with Pax? Yes. Okay. Yes, absolutely. It really depends on how the primary shakes out. But look, with Tallarico ahead at this point in the polling is astonishing in Texas. and he's not ahead by he's outside the margin of error so all these polls have a you know 2.5 to 3.5 margin of error usually um you know he's up seven on on paxton that's outside the margin of error so that means that even if the poll was you know off by three or four points he's still ahead by a winning margin. So it's hard to understate how wild that is in Texas. And of course, he's doing amazing with small dollar donors right now.

21:33I don't have his FEC sheet pulled up right now, but he is doing really well. And when you have to play defense in an election, you have to triage. And they have a huge war chest. Republicans have a massive amount of money. But what they see in the polls is national, widespread, deep discontent across every major metric, across all the important demographics for them, especially independent voters. That is going to be their Achilles heel. When the sitting president is – it went three to one against the sitting president in approval among independents. The alarm bells could not possibly be louder.

22:15And I love that for them. All of them. All right, Andrew, thank you. This was fascinating. I'm going to stay in tune with all this. I'm going to keep watching. I'd love to have you back on closer to midterms. Yes, of course. Thank you so much for having me. Thanks for being on.