Inside New Harvard/Harris 2026 Midterm Poll Shows Close Race Between Democrats And Republicans

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0:33Hi, everybody. I'm Brittany Lewis, a breaking news reporter here at Forbes. Joining me once again is Dritan Esho. He's the Harris X founder and CEO. Dritan, thanks so much for coming back on.

0:43Dritan Nesho: Thanks for having me. I'm excited to talk about this new Harvard Caps Harris poll. And as you and I sit here right now, we are less than a month out from the midterms. And there are a lot of telling and shocking and interesting data points here, but I think we should start with whatever your opinion is on the most revealing, and then we can kind of build out from there. So for you to start off the conversation, what data point either shocked you the most or you think reveals the most about what's to come in less than 30 days? Well, it's not a surprise, especially to viewers who are attuned with politics that President Trump's approval rating has been sliding.

1:29Dritan Nesho: And in our September poll, he hit a low of 42 % approval. And overall, he's within that range of 38%, 42 % in the Real Clear Politics average of polls. So he's certainly underwater. And this reflects all of the inflation pressures, the economic pressures that consumers and voters are feeling, especially after the Iran conflict started in the March-April timeframe. But what's fascinating in our poll is that our poll is consistently much closer in terms of the spread between Democrats and Republicans heading into the midterms. And it really points to a very interesting phenomenon that isn't being discussed very much.

2:19Dritan Nesho: The gap between the president's approval rating and really the midterm horse race, the generic midterm horse race. So we have Democrats up two points or with a two-point lead amongst likely voters. But when you look at the pool of total voters, all registered voters, it's really a 50-50 tie. And in general, when you look at all of the polls and you compare President Trump's approval rating versus where the midterm horse race stands, there's usually a 10-point spread, and in some cases a 15-point spread between his approval rating and really how close the parties are within the midterm. This points to a lot of things which we can get into as part of the conversation but it really shows that this race this midterm can really go either way for a wide array of reasons and the difficulty when looking at the polls is to understand you know are they under weighing the support that Republicans have are they under weighing the support that Democrats have and really which way the bias in the polling is going in order to make as close with an assessment and as accurate an assessment as we can.

3:44I wanted to dive a little deeper in there because Trump's underwater in this poll, but not nearly as badly as he is underwater in other polls. Your poll has the spread between approval and disapproval at a negative 13. Another poll, an Economist and YouGov recent poll has that spread at 25. And the 2026 generic congressional vote, you have Democrats up by two points. But according to Real Clear Politics, the average of the most recent polls have Democrats up by around eight and a half points. What do you think your poll is seeing that perhaps other polls could be missing? Fall has never looked or tasted this good.

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4:52Dritan Nesho: well our poll usually keeps party id consistent so in general there is much less variance between waves than you see in the other polls where it's allowed to be a free floating variable right however many democrats or republicans or independents you pick are the number of democrats or republicans or independents that you get into the poll we try to calibrate it to the last ballot vote, in which case it's the last presidential election in 2024, and really keep it within that proportion of party ID or self-identified support of the different parties. So in general, there is less variance in our poll, and our poll has been more stable, but also in difficult election years like 2020, it was also the most accurate, precisely because of this calibration or this weighting that gets applied to it.

5:55Dritan Nesho: When you look at the polling, there's no doubt that the atmospherics of the poll, the way that the questions, especially the questions around the economy are breaking, that this is pointing to bad results for Republicans heading into the midterms. I mean, you know, in our poll, 56 % say the country's on the wrong track. 57 % say the economy is on the wrong track. People believe that their well-being, their personal well-being is going down. I believe 29 % only say that their well-being is improving. so a full 71 % they either feel that they're flat or they're going down and the amount of people that say that their well-being is decreasing or getting worse is really close to half of the whole voter pool and inflation is the overwhelming top personal concern for voters with other issues let's say like immigration that have been staple issues for the Republicans and President Trump going down.

7:07Dritan Nesho: So there's no doubt that the economic mood or the general mood has dampened because of the economy and because of the inflation. But at the same time, we're also not seeing Democrats having closed the deal with voters. And we're seeing a lot of voters either on the fence or completely dissuaded from even engaging and voting in the elections. And that's what reflects the difference between the president's approval rating which is significantly underwater and really the horse race which you know even if you take the average that real clear politics have which is somewhere between it has oscillated let's say between four and eight points right with the average really over last third days being around six points you see that there's a fairly big gap there too, right?

8:03Dritan Nesho: Like that there's this 10 point gaps. And again, the takeaway there is the Democrats haven't closed the deal. Their messaging isn't as strong as it can or should be. And frankly, the party doesn't have a leader or where the energy is coming around the party is really with the democratic socialists of America and the far left. And voters have a lot of concerns when it comes to what they view as quote-unquote the extremist elements in both of the party right too far left or too far right when it comes to uh republicans so i think that uh this is the type of the election that can engineer an october surprise will they be will there be one we don't know if the trend is as it stands if it continues as it is then yes the Democrats are in for a victory, especially in the House of Representatives.

8:59Dritan Nesho: But don't be surprised if the victory is more muted than the polls lead you to believe, that Democrats pick up anywhere between 10 and 20 seats, with the average being around 15, rather than a landslide victory of 40-plus seats, as some of the polling would indicate. It's only October 5th, as you and I talk right now. So we still have 26 days or so for that October surprise, but it comes to no surprise, I think, to anyone that the economy continues to be the top issue. And whenever you and I have talked earlier in President Trump's second term, you said voters give Trump a runway before they blame the economy or give full ownership of the economy to him over Biden.

9:48That runway has long passed, right? Voters think that President Trump is in full control of the economy, not Biden. The majority of them think inflation is President Trump's fault, not Biden's. But I'm curious, did this poll find that most voters think the economy is also Republicans' fault? Do they get that blame too? Yeah.

10:09Dritan Nesho: I mean, Donald Trump owns the economy today, period. And I would add on to that that 57 % of voters say that Trump is more responsible for the recent inflation than Biden was, than the decisions that were made before two years or before the general election in 2024. And really 53 % say the economy is worse today than it was under Biden. That's a spread of three points. It's much closer because, you know, Biden, the inflation under Biden was significantly higher than it is today. But simply put, you know, six in 10 voters, including, you know, over four in 10 Republicans, you know, close to eight in 10 Democrats and six in 10 independents.

10:58Dritan Nesho: They basically say the state of the current economy is on Donald Trump and his lap. And really they view also a series of unforced issues or errors, depending on how you view them, when it comes to President Trump's management of the economy. For sure there is a tacit acknowledgement that the conflict with Iran has led to increased oil prices and by extension increased inflation and increased prices. But really, voters believe that the principal cause of inflation today are actually President Trump's tariffs, economic tariffs, followed only by government overspending and deficits, and then the Middle East conflict.

11:51Dritan Nesho: And really, when you ask them what would be the best way of reducing inflation, the number one choice that they have is ending the tariffs. So this is also one of those situations where the question emerges, you know, is President Trump willing to part ways with one of his favorite policies in order to save his elections? Will he, if he will, cut a limb in order to survive for the midterm election, that limb being tariffs right letting go of the strict tariff policies that he is instrumented or given also one of the things that came out of the convention this promise to deliver$5 ,000 in relief to every American if the Republicans hold on to the Congress to both the House of Representatives and the Senate then really the branches of governments are aligned that can push it through that is a policy that while voters have questions around they generally like so there's also potentially an opportunity for President Trump to come in and say look all of the profits that we have collected under the new tariffs regime we're going to give back as a dividend or as a way to alleviate the pressures of inflation's and the economy to the Americans that need it the most and that could in and of itself be an October surprise right something that turns this problematic issue of tariffs on its head and helps alleviate the perception that voters have that really now Trump is driving up inflation and that's what he was brought to rain in right or to bring down he was elected because Biden couldn't do it and inflation was you know at 8 % under Biden while you know under Trump it went down and now it's back up three to four percent and I will you know and by saying that one of the interesting things is that only half of voters are aware of what I just said that inflation under Biden was two times higher if not more than what it is presently right now under President Trump but all of his policy moves the fact that they are not really well explained to the country or to the voters basically have led to a situation where not only are the policies problematic and amounting to unforced errors, but really the communication around the policies is lacking, right?

14:30Dritan Nesho: And the president and the White House are not really doing an adequate job explaining to voters, here's why we are where we are. And by the way, inflation is significantly lower than it used to be under Biden. So the economic picture for the Trump White House and really the Republicans writ large, it's a challenging one, for sure. And that's not a good message to hear if you're a Republican, right? Because President Trump, he's not on the ballot in November, but across the country, hundreds of Republicans are. So will Will they pay the price for how voters feel about the war against Iran, about President Trump's tariffs, about the economy in general?

15:13Will voters say, hey, I associate those policies with Republicans in general, not just President Trump?

15:21Dritan Nesho: Well, and that's where we get into the question or the theme of the midterm convention that Republicans had, right? Was it the right move or not? It was clear that the goal of the convention was to nationalize the midterm elections and really introduce Donald Trump as a factor into each of these down ballot races and all of them, really. But whether or not that was the right strategy or is the right decision, it's still to be seen. Right. What we know right now is that really the convention didn't move the dial that much. I mean, it reinforced for the Republican base what the policies of the Republican Party were.

16:09Dritan Nesho: But overall, only about a third of voters, or 36 % to be exact, said that the convention was effective at making the case for the Republican Party in the upcoming elections. and even amongst those who tuned into it, they were fairly split about 50-50 or 53 % within this case. And also the thing that came out of the convention, which was a big surprise, was really this$5 ,000 proposal intended to encourage voters to vote Republicans in the midterms. And, you know, 69 % of voters saw it as just that, almost as a sophisticated political bribe rather than a serious policy. But it doesn't mean that they don't like it.

16:57Dritan Nesho: And when asked, they do want this relief and they do want the relief as a straight cash injection. So again, the communication really was the issue and this proposal hasn't really landed both in terms of understanding and knowledge and awareness and in terms of being properly framed with most voters. So it's not really making a difference right now for the Republicans. So as it stands, you know, this gambit nationalizing the election through a Republican convention, a midterm convention, really doesn't seem like it was the right strategy, but it might actually, you know, it might pan out, especially again, if in the next 25 days, they are either able to push this policy or are able to engineer a massive relief, especially around inflation, even if it doesn't hit in the short term, if say tariffs were lowered, or there was a dividend from tariffs that went to the country, then that's something that could play positively for the Republicans between now and the midterms and really close the gap between the two parties fairly significantly.

18:15And let's turn to Democrats because we're seeing a lot from them in terms of some DSA candidates, Democratic Socialists won in the primaries. Then you're seeing more moderates, not some victories as well, when people are talking about 2028 potential candidates for them to anyone from Senator John Ossoff to Governor Gavin Newsom to former Vice President Harris to AOC, and those are all different types of Democrats. How do people feel about the Democratic Party right now?

18:50Dritan Nesho: Well, I'll tell you that for both the Democratic Party and actually the Republican Party, voters are split on whether or not both of the parties are being taken over by the extremes, right? The Democrats by the far left and the Republicans being taken over by the far right. And what's interesting is that 32 % of Democrats, close to a third of all Democrats, believe that their party is under the sway of the most extreme representatives of the party. And 37 % of Republicans say the same about their party. So we're really in a position where voters are looking for moderate policies, centrist policies, the politics of compromise, common sense politics, writ large, and they're not getting it.

19:44Dritan Nesho: On the aggregate, they do believe that the Republican Party is acting more extremely than the Democratic Party. 56 % said the Republicans, 44 % said the Democrats. But that really indicates the mood of the independents in the middle. The partisans kind of split with relative proportions in favor of their party. And even, you know, when they break ranks, as I said, about a third from each party does so. But the independents, that's really where where Democrats are getting their wind and they are splitting roughly 60-40 in favor of Democrats. Again, not a slam dunk. They haven't really closed the deal, but they're leaning in the direction of Democrats than Republicans.

20:35Dritan Nesho: And that's very likely to affect the elections, the midterm elections in the direction of the Democratic Party. I want to turn to a different issue, and that's artificial intelligence, because conversations around safety surrounding AI have really reached a boiling point over the last month. It started when a researcher who worked at both OpenAI and Anthropic during his career, he publicly resigned from Anthropic. He said both companies were gambling with our lives. and one of his former colleagues, a lead researcher at Anthropic, he chimed in and he said that he believed there's more than a 10 % chance that within the next decade, AI could kill us all.

21:15Obviously, that sounded off a lot of alarm bells. People got really freaked out by that. But President Trump, he downplayed these AI concerns. Now he calls it super intelligence. So how do voters feel about AI and how much will this issue matter in the midterms and even beyond in 2028? Well, I would say that AI is really a growing political issue.

21:40Dritan Nesho: I don't think that it moves the dial. In fact, our data suggests that it doesn't yet move the dial for the midterms, but it could be a massive sleeper issue for 2028 and beyond. Simply put, the fear quotient or index around AI is higher than the opportunity or optimism index around AI. Whereas 60 % of the country expects something positive from AI both economically in terms of their empowerment and their jobs. a full 80 % in some cases higher are afraid of what AI will do and part of that is that there's a lot of known unknowns around artificial intelligence and all the way that it could develop but it's also the messaging that the industry has had which is telling people consistently all the things that AI can do framed almost in such a way that hey artificial intelligence or super intelligence is here to replace you rather than communicating the benefits of AI that we're actually seeing in the economy.

22:56Dritan Nesho: Over a million AI jobs have been added just this year alone and many more to come. That this revolution and this transformation will not happen overnight and it still requires human beings to be in the middle and pushing it through. So where does that leave us with the polling. Three-fourths of all voters support creating a bipartisan government agency to regulate AI and really, you know, they favor the creation of such an agency. A full two-thirds favor the creation of such an agency over kind of laissez-faire economics when it comes to AI and making sure that the US, you know, beats China in their competition around artificial intelligence.

23:45Dritan Nesho: asked differently, we found out that two thirds of voters support slowing AI development to account for possible risks and close to six in 10 said that there should be more regulations. And really they favor that compared to the competition with China or they favor that over the competition with China. So really the data is favorable to a measured pause and to the introduction of guardrails so that AI can lead to its promise of economic growth and productivity and better prospects for users rather than lead to the opposite, which is millions of unemployed and obviously all of these risks that you just mentioned, the founders of the big AI platforms have mentioned.

24:41Dritan Nesho: So an interesting and complicated picture on AI, and really the industry has not warmed the hearts and minds of American voters and American consumers when it comes to the application of this new technology. I do want to zoom out a bit and look at some international issues and see how much they matter or move the needle at all when it comes to how voters feel in November and beyond, like the Russia-Ukraine war, like the war against Iran, which President Trump now promised will be wrapped up shortly after the election. He said it was going to be wrapped up back in February, four to six weeks after it began.

25:19So that would put him put the end at that point in either March or April. And then when you think about our relationship with China, President Trump had Xi Jinping for a state visit just last month and they had a meeting at the White House. Do those types of President Trump's handling of foreign affairs, does that matter and by how much in the midterms?

25:44Dritan Nesho: Well, you know, it does matter. I mean, look, we ask the question plainly and it's really the hard question around the issue. Does Donald Trump's handling of the war in Iran makes you more likely to vote Democrat in the upcoming midterms or more likely to vote Republicans, or does it not have any effect? And there you see a nine-point spread. 41 % of all respondents said that Trump's handling of the war makes them want to vote for Democrats. 32 % say that they're more likely to vote Republican and 27 % were in the middle saying it didn't have any effect and they're concerned about different kinds of issues.

26:28Dritan Nesho: I mean simply put voters do not believe that President Trump has accomplished his goals when it comes to Iran, the stated goal being the removal of Iran's nuclear capability and their nuclear ambitions. A full two-thirds also say that Iran should not be allowed to control the Strait of Hormuz and that the U.S. should resume the use of force if Iran does not give up this control and this cuts across political parties and really 77 percent, a full three-fourths, which is overwhelming consensus in modern American politics, say that the United States should keep the Strait of Hormuz open for national security the interests and at all costs.

27:14Dritan Nesho: So really voters have a dampened mood on Iran. They're waiting and seeing whether the administration will be successful and if it plays to the administration's favor, they obviously will gain points and popularity including ahead of the midterm. If it doesn't, then this will hurt them or continue to hurt them economically as it has been doing to date, but really two-thirds want to see the Iran conflict through to its intended objectives. And really they're stuck between wanting to see it through and give Trump the runway that he needs and the support that he needs and the economic pains that this conflict has produced, which have made both voters very agitated as we talked about earlier in the show.

28:05I'm not the only person who likes looking at history as a precedent here. And a lot of people can't help but notice that 2006 started the exact way 2026 did, which is that a Republican controlled the White House and Republicans controlled the House and the Senate. And I'm curious, based on this most recent poll here, do you think 2026 will end in the same way 2006 did, which is that Democrats completely dominated in the midterms and took back control of the House and the Senate.

28:41Dritan Nesho: Well, the Senate is very close, right? And in a close Senate, the reality, if it's a couple of seats in the favor of Democrats or a couple of seats in the favor of Republicans, really what that means is that the moderate voices within each of the party take over. and these moderate voices then tend to push policy outcomes that require compromise that give something to both of the parties no one is fully happy and no one is fully upset right and that's a good thing right a split Senate it's very difficult to say at this stage will Democrats take over the Senate or not but what we can know for sure is that voices like Senator Angus King or Susan and Collins on the other side, the centrist senators will have a lot of sway going forward and that is a good thing for the policy formation process.

29:39Dritan Nesho: It also means that there will be more checks and balances on the administration on executive power because the deflection of one or two or three of these senates can really change the calculus when it comes to policy making or even impeachment right or investigations and so on and so forth so I think it's yet to be determined it's very difficult to make a call at this stage but it looks like the Senate will be very very close and in either way it gives an opportunity to the moderates to take over right and that's very much needed especially when you see half of all voters thinks the extremes of both of the parties are creating problems within the political system.

30:28Well, there's a lot that remains to be seen between now and November and beyond, and I hope that means we can have plenty more conversations. Driton Nasho, always a pleasure. Thanks so much for coming back on.

30:40Dritan Nesho: Thanks, Brittany. And all the findings are at harrisx.com or harvardharrisball.com. So invite your viewers to take a look at that.

31:20We'll see you next time. glazed salmon plate and roasted bacon brussel side. The season's most desirable menu has returned to Sweetgreen, featuring fall's best dressed. Make your move. Order on the Sweetgreen app.