Trump Faces New Midterm Warning Signs as Polls Shift

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1:28Ben Meiselas:This is the nightmare scenario Donald Trump feared most. He's crashing in the polls. People are saying former President Biden did a far better job on the economy than Donald Trump. You think? Even Donald Trump's top supporters, the most ultra MAGA of people, they're abandoning him. The so-called front row Joes, the Trump MAGA supporters who followed Trump around wherever he went from speech to speech, they've turned against Donald Trump. And they're saying he's covering up child sex trafficking rings. He's getting involved in these never ending wars. He looks like an utter buffoon as he claimed 600 times that he's entered a deal with Iran and America has never looked weaker.

2:13Ben Meiselas:Total and utter betrayal is what these so-called front row Joes who used to follow Donald Trump around from rally to rally are saying publicly. They're speaking out publicly. We'll get to that in a moment, but let's take a look right here at the polling data of who handled the economy better. This is from a Harvard Harris poll. According to voters, former president Biden leads 53 % to 47 % on the issue of who handled the economy better. Amongst independents, Biden leads Trump 61 % to 39%. In other words, 61 % of independents say that Biden handled the economy better than Donald Trump. You think Donald Trump has crashed the economy right now?

2:56Ben Meiselas:You've got treasury yields at all-time highs. The 30-year treasury yield closed at like 5.59 % yesterday. The 30-year fixed mortgage is heading to 8 % right now. Trump, an utter disaster. Take a look at the latest YouGov Economist poll of likely voters. Donald Trump's approval is only at 37%. 62 % of likely voters disapprove. But when you get to the generic ballot right here, Democrats have a 15-point lead. Democrats, 53%. Republicans, 38%. This is the biggest Democratic lead in this poll ever. In 2018, when Democrats picked up all of those seats, it was a plus six advantage. It's nearly three times that right now.

3:46Ben Meiselas:You look at the Quinnipiac poll, very similar to the YouGov Economist poll that I just shared with you. The Democrats in a generic ballot lead plus 12, 51 % to 39 % against Republicans. And among independents, the Democratic generic ballot is a 24-point lead, absolutely massive, as Larry Sabato says. And then you look at some of the individual polls state by state. Take a look at the Morris poll in Ohio. They're one of the most accurate pollsters. They are the Democratic candidate, Sherrod Brown, leads MAGA Republican Senator Euston, 51 % to 43%. Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for governor, leads MAGA Republican extremist, Vivek Ramaswamy, 50 % to 44%.

4:39Ben Meiselas:And here's a key stat. 50 % strongly disapprove of Trump in Ohio. Let me repeat that. 50 % strongly disapprove of Trump in Ohio. That strongly disapprove number is at an all-time high in Ohio. Take a look at this Michigan poll right here. Abdul El-Sayed up 45 % to Mike Rogers, 40 % in the governor's race. Jocelyn Benson leads the MAGA Republican extremists, 45 % to 38%. Let's take a look at Kansas, Emerson, a top poller. In Kansas, the Democratic candidate, Adam Hamilton, leads the MAGA Republican extremist, Roger Marshall, 45 % to 43%. You take a look at Texas. There you have James Tolerico, the Democratic candidate for Senate, leading Ken Paxton, the MAGA Republican extremist, 50 % to 44%.

5:37Ben Meiselas:In the governor's race, the Democratic candidate Gina Hinojosa at 49%, Greg Abbott at 46%, the incumbent MAGA extremist who welcomed all those data centers into Texas. You look at South Carolina right now as well, a very close race. Darlene Graham, Lindsey Graham's sister who could care less about foreign policy or basically just about anything. She only leads the Democratic candidate, Dr. Annie Andrews, by just one point. And there's a lot of undecided voters as well. South Carolina can swing Democratic and Annie Andrews is running a great campaign. You look in Florida, Democrats running a great campaign there.

6:21Ben Meiselas:You look throughout the country right now, you're seeing strong Democratic campaigns. Now let's take a look, as I said, about these front row Joes, as they're called, the roving band of President Trump's most ardent supporters, many of whom dedicated portions of their lives traveling around the country to be in the front row with Donald and to sell their Trump and MAGA gear. People like Tricia Hope, who told Politico Playbook, Trump is a fraud and a liar and Rick Frazier, another so-called front row Joe, who says Trump can't be trusted with anything. So Tricia Hope joined the so-called front row Joe's group in 2018.

7:03Ben Meiselas:She published a book about Donald Trump's tweets. It was called Just His Tweets. So she took an RV. She followed him wherever he went. During Trump's first impeachment, she spent two weeks in Washington roaming Capitol Hill to defend Trump. I went to every single senator's office as well as Republican congressman. I did everything I could for him. But now the one scenario that would bring her back to Washington for Trump's sake, if we do lose the midterms and he is impeached again, I will be walking the halls of Congress to support that impeachment. She now wants Trump to be impeached. Hope saw her faith shaken during the July 8th, 2025 cabinet meeting when a reporter asked Attorney General Pam Bondi about the Justice Department's handling of the Epstein files.

7:57Ben Meiselas:Before she could answer, Trump interrupted, are you still talking about Jeffrey Epstein? This guy's been talked about for years. It was like a dagger to my heart, Donald Trump's front road, Joe Hope said. It was like a light switch went off and a veil was lifted and I saw him for who he was and I have not been able to unsee it since. The war with Iran vindicated those feelings. He said the war is over 600 times. He tells us they don't have a military, they don't have a navy, they're still blowing up things. It's just all lies. Meanwhile, Frazier, a founding Joe, shares her frustration. Epstein crimes and feeding the industrial military complex, those are big no's for me, Frazier told Playbook.

8:44Ben Meiselas:He promoted himself as a no-war president. That didn't work out. Frazier has been to over 100 Trump rallies and creates content for the group. Now he's feeling done with politics. I'm to the point of not going to the polls in November, he said. And folks, according to all the latest modeling, the Democrats not only appear poised to take over the House of Representatives, but also to take over the United States Senate. I wanna bring in Nevada Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, and she's been traveling around the country, and she's been supporting a lot of these Democratic Senate candidates across the country, and I wanna see what she has to say about her views, about what she expects to happen in the upcoming election.

9:30Ben Meiselas:Folks, it's the homestretch of the election. It's right around the corner. Let's bring in Senator Catherine Cortez Masto. Now I want to bring on Nevada Senator Cortez Masto. Senator Cortez Masto, great to see you as always. I know you've been very focused on a lot of these Senate races and we're seeing a lot of polling data reflecting that Democrats could take control of the Senate. I think people want accountability and oversight. Talk to us about whether this is hype and hopium of Democrats taking control of the Senate, or if you see this as a real possibility as it's increasingly being reflected in the polls.

10:14Yeah. So first of all, always great to join you. Thank you for all of your good work. Let me put it in this perspective. When we flipped the Senate last time, I was in charge of the DSCC and worked to make sure that we had not only support for our incumbents, but incredible candidates that were running at that time that we knew would help us flip the Senate as Democrats. And that's when we picked up Georgia and the two Senate seats there. It was Mark Kelly in Arizona. It was Hickenlooper in Colorado. That helped us flip the Senate. Now we're trying to do it again. And I will tell you, I feel the energy, the same type of energy and even more so in a lot of our battleground states.

10:56To win the Senate, we have to go through these battleground states. That's where these swing voters are. And that's like Nevada, which is a purple state. I can tell you that voters in general and people in general feel the squeeze from the bad policies of this administration. They are struggling under high prices, whether it's the gas, the gas, right, fuel, whether it's groceries, housing, health care. When I'm home and I'm all over my state, that's the number one thing I hear. And it's going to it's really what's going to bring people out. And so not only do we have a chance to hold our Senate seats that we have now, which are about 47 of them, but we're going to pick up.

11:38We have pickup opportunities in several states, including some states that we just supported as part of the mod squad kind of candidates that we are supporting in these swing states. And that includes Texas with James Tallarico. That's Scott Colom in Mississippi. That's Adam Hamilton in Kansas. On top of Josh Turek in Iowa. Roy Cooper in North Carolina. Mary Peltola in Alaska. and even in Ohio, Sherrod Brown, he's looking really good. And so we have an opportunity here to flip the Senate as Democrats. And quite honestly, we need to, because the bad policies of this administration are just not only harming this country, but harming people across the country and our businesses.

12:25And the only thing I've seen this administration do from the time they got until the time they are looking to leave in two years is try to fill their pockets as quickly as possible with as much corruption that they can get away with at the expense of everybody who's suffering under these bad policies.

12:41Ben Meiselas:Talk to us about some of the races that you just mentioned, and we can zoom in on some of them, like Kansas, like Iowa. And of course, we've been focused a lot on James Tallarico in Texas, who's running an incredible campaign. You look at Sherrod Brown in Ohio, you look at what's going on across the country. There's so many places that I are, But like, look at Kansas. All of a sudden, two weeks ago, three weeks ago, I'm watching the Kansas State Fair debate. And this guy, Adam Hamilton, comes out of like nowhere. And this guy is like debating like I've never seen before in front of this crowd.

13:17Ben Meiselas:And I'm thinking to myself, you know, I cover this stuff. I'm like, where did this guy come from? Because that was some incredible stuff that I saw there. And we're seeing across the country good candidates who are speaking to their state in an authentic way. And that's you just touched on it. It's the authenticity of it because people are struggling and they want they want people are going to run for office and represent them that are actually focused on solving their problems. And Adam Hamilton is one of these people who has been in the community, in his state. He's a pastor. He has worked on not only his faith and what he believes in, but also helping his neighbors and giving back and helping people find solutions and succeed.

13:58So he's the real deal. And he has been in his state, working in his state on those very issues. And so for him to now come out and decide, I want to run at a national level because I want to carry this through at a national level on behalf of my state. People around Kansas are seeing this. And he's running against, as you well know, a Republican incumbent, a doctor who is having a tough time right now because the incumbent, the Republican senator that's there now, all he does is a rubber stamp for Donald Trump on the same policies that are harming the people of his state. So you're seeing that in Kansas.

14:34The same for Iowa, right? So a lot of farmers that are struggling under the policies of this administration from the high diesel prices to a lot of the challenges that they're facing within their small businesses as farmers and ranchers and including cattle ranchers and this administration is imposing policies that are actually harming their businesses and these are people that probably voted for Donald Trump and now they're saying enough there's too many broken promises from this administration so now you see in Iowa the same thing. It's an open Senate seat. But Josh Turek, who again is from Iowa, he knows the state very well.

15:11He represented one of the districts there in the state house. It is a very Trump district and he's a Democrat and he won and he continues to win there. And he is just connecting with his voters because he's talking the truth. He's talking to them about the challenges they're facing. He understands it because he's one of them. and he wants to solve these problems. And right now, the Republicans who are in leadership, including starting in the Oval Office, they really don't care about solving problems for people and helping them through the crisis that they're dealing with right now. So that's playing out in Iowa.

15:44It's playing out in Kansas. We see it across the board here in so many of these states that it is important for people to understand when we're talking about the energy that is out there now, not just for Democrats, but for nonpartisans. In Nevada, I have a lot of nonpartisans who feel the same struggles. You're seeing that also with some moderate Republicans, but Republicans in general who are fed up with this administration and the broken promises. And so that's the energy that people feel right now across the country. That's going to help us flip the Senate. It's going to help us flip the House as well.

16:18But here's the deal. Once we do that, then we've got to focus on the policies of the people across this country and the challenges they're faced. not these forever wars, not blanket tariffs that are harming people and passing down the costs to them, to the consumer or harming our businesses. We got to focus on solving these problems, lowering these prices, making sure people's lives are a little bit better, that they actually can't afford their groceries. They can actually get to work a good paying job and not have to pay $7 or more for gas. In Nevada, by the way, a gallon of gas is almost at$6 and diesel's almost at$7.

17:00That is expensive. And I don't know how people have to manage whether they're going to pay their groceries or their prescriptions, medications, versus having to put gas in their tank to get to work. It's ridiculous. And the only thing they've heard from this Trump administration is about foreign wars. It is about these vanity projects that he is funding. It is commercials. Let's talk about the commercials that the president has put out, has spent over a million dollars on commercials, campaign commercials for this president. And he's not even up. He's not even running, but he's spending taxpayer dollars, just like Kristi Noem did, almost 200 ,000, right?

17:40This guy's spending almost over a million dollars, president trump on campaign commercials for himself he doesn't care about the struggles of people across this country the american public he doesn't care about our small businesses clearly he's spending their money to prop up himself at the expense of everyone else so people see the lies they see what's happening and they're tired of it and rightfully so and that's what's going

18:03Ben Meiselas:to help us flip the senate look when you talk about the ads that he's putting out there you know, he's raised or through chicanery brought in hundreds of millions of dollars with those emails, lots of them to elderly people and others saying, please, I need your money running out of time. You got to match$5 ,000. So his PAC raised$400 million. So he has the ability to run an ad on the Ohio State football games or whatever, but he and the MAGA Republicans are just choosing to crime. Like they just want everybody to know that we're going to, as in my opinion, that we're going to violate every law.

18:42Ben Meiselas:And we're, we're, we so hate the American people. And we so think that accountability means nothing, that we are going to use your taxpayer dollars to run the exact, the exact ad he ran in 2024. The only silver lining is that because he betrayed all of the things that the narrator's talking about. Honestly, it looks like an attack ad against himself because he's declaring golden age and look what it looks like an attack ad, but he's choosing to do it in a criminal way because that's how they do everything, right? I mean, that's part of it. That is absolutely right. The corruption and people see it.

19:22And, you know, when you're struggling and you want your elected leaders, you want especially the leader of the president of the United States working on your behalf to help you through your struggles, to help you with a good paying job, to be able to access health care and affordable health care, and it's there when you need it, to be able to pay your groceries. It hurts when you're seeing the President of the United States not focused on that, but instead using your dollars to benefit himself, whether it's through these campaign ads that he's putting out there or actually selling stuff online to the American people and still taking their money.

20:01Now, that's on top of, let's talk about, that's on top of all the crypto money that he and his family have made in the last two years, right, that he is in. All of the deals that they have cut, whether it's here in the United States or around the world to benefit their companies. They are thinking, this president, there's no doubt in my mind, is thinking not just now how he can fill his pockets, but long-term, how he can keep it going. That's all the contracts, the shakedowns that they've done with companies, the contracts that they're entering into around the world for the benefit of his kids and his businesses long term.

20:37It is very clear the corruption that he is engaging in to his own benefit. And that's exactly the challenge we face in this country. But let me add one more thing to this, because this is what's frustrating to me as a United States Senator, who took the oath of office to uphold the Constitution and stand up for the people of this country. I have Republican colleagues who did the same thing, and they're doing the bidding of this president. They're not holding him accountable. In fact, they're facilitating, right? Allowing him to get away with all this, not even questioning what he is doing. And that to me is just as bad.

21:13It just, it is really a violation of not only the constitution and the oath we took, it is a betrayal of the American public as an elected leader and what you're trying to do here. And it is not lost on people across the country who are struggling. And it goes back to elections matter and your vote matters. I know people don't think that's the case, but it does. Every vote matters in this country because this is the way we stand up for our democracy. This is the way we choose our elected leaders and hold them accountable. And this is something that not every other country has the ability to do, but we do.

21:53And it is important for people to get out and vote in this midterm and in future elections.

22:01Ben Meiselas:Right. You look at some of your Republican colleagues and be like, we're a co-equal branch, damn it. I mean, look, it's an august honor to be a United States Senator. There ain't that many of you and it's a big responsibility. Why would you want to take on this job just to be a bootlicker and just not assert what the voters have given you the ability to do, which at its most basic level is functioning as a co-equal branch and conducting oversight. And so much of what I see is you have Donald Trump's behavior. I don't even want to call it plans because there's no planning at all, but the behavior is cruel and unusual and painful and malicious.

22:40Ben Meiselas:But then it's also carried out recklessly and it fails in what he's even claiming he wants to achieve with the cruel and unusual stuff. You look at what ICE and Border Patrol have done, again, cruel, unusual, malicious. And then every day they're talking about gloves that shock people to death. And it's like, what are you even doing? And then they implement it with people like Kristi Noem, who also add another layer of like the incompetence and the recklessness to it. That's just awful. And then you look at the catastrophic war in Iran, a war we should never have been involved in, then we run out of weapons.

23:12Ben Meiselas:We run out, we have a trillion dollar military budget. We run out of weapons. And then these, these idiots, you know, and I call Hexeth and all these people, you know, they're like, uh, we're winning. We've never won so much. We're doing, I'm like, we're not winning. I don't know what you're talking about. I, we, we, we, we don't control the straight of her move. Stop saying it. If we controlled it, we'd have our aircraft carriers and Navy destroyers to stop lying about this stuff. It's ridiculous. And I think everybody sees it. I see your constituents see it. It's just this constant fire hose of lies, every utter and sound syllable.

23:43Ben Meiselas:It's like, just enough, and let's bring in people who can hold these bad people accountable. To me, it's as simple as that. I'll give you the final word, though. Well, and you're absolutely right, the shamelessness in it, right? They think that they can go around and say whatever they want, and people should accept it as the truth. When people in reality realize, oh my gosh, these guys are lying to us. Let me give you a perfect an example. I come from a state, Nevada, Las Vegas. Everybody knows Las Vegas and Nevada, where I was born and raised. Our revenue is generated off of tourism and travel.

24:12People want to come to our great state and enjoy Las Vegas. The president campaigned on no tax on tips to tell the people that work in that hospitality industry, you get to keep more of your money. If people come here, you want to keep more of your money in your pocket. We're not going to tax those tips. He just recently came back to Las Vegas to tout how wonderful his bill is that he passed. The challenge he had, which he didn't realize, is that because of his bad policies, Canadians and many people are not coming to Las Vegas. Tourism is down in Las Vegas by 7%. When tourism is down, the people that work in that hospitality industry are losing jobs, or they're down to part time or businesses are closing.