The Republican Party enters the final month before the 2026 midterms with an increasingly difficult political environment shaped by issues that sit at the heart of Donald Trump’s second-term agenda. The most immediate problem is economic: voters are increasingly connecting high prices to Trump’s tariffs and the Iran war, rather than treating inflation as a legacy of the Biden years.
At the same time, early voting data show stronger Democratic participation in several important states, although those figures remain too incomplete to predict the final result. The emerging picture is therefore less about a single issue than about whether Trump’s policies have become a liability for Republican candidates in close races.
The economy has become Trump’s biggest political problem
The latest AP-NORC poll offers the clearest measure of the problem. Only 17% of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the cost of living and just 26% approve of his handling of the economy. Roughly seven in 10 say his performance on the cost of living has been worse than expected. More significantly for Republicans, about six in 10 Republicans disapprove of Trump’s handling of living costs.
Sixty-five percent of Americans say Trump’s policies are more responsible for persistently high prices than factors outside his control. That is a substantially different political problem from the one confronting Joe Biden before the 2022 midterms. In October 2022, AP-NORC found that only 44% blamed Biden’s policies for high prices while 55% blamed external factors.
Trump campaigned in 2024 promising to bring prices down. The AP report found that about half of Americans are now extremely or very concerned about affording groceries and filling their gas tanks. Trump’s approval on the economy has fallen 14 points since March 2025.
Reuters has found a similar deterioration. Its September 17-20 poll put Trump’s overall approval at 32%, a low in its polling across his presidencies. Republican approval of his handling of the economy had fallen to 56%, from 80% earlier in his second term, while approval of his handling of the cost of living had dropped to 44% from 70%.
This creates an unusual vulnerability for Republican candidates. They cannot easily campaign against an incumbent administration’s economic record because Trump remains the central figure of the party. Yet defending the administration also means defending policies that voters increasingly associate with higher household costs.
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Tariffs and Iran are no longer separate issues
The Trump administration’s two major policy choices, tariffs and the war with Iran, are increasingly merging into one political problem: the cost of living.
The AP-NORC survey found only about three in 10 Americans approve of Trump’s handling of trade negotiations while 64% believe he has gone too far with tariffs. On Iran, only 28% approve of his handling of the conflict and 69% say the war has not been worth fighting.
An Economist/YouGov survey conducted September 18-21 found 57% saying entering the war with Iran was the wrong decision and 61% wanting a deal to end it as soon as possible. Republican support has also weakened. The share of Republicans saying the war was the right decision fell from 68% in April to 53% in September.
Lara Trump, the president’s daughter-in-law and former Republican National Committee chair, has acknowledged that the war “could cost” Republicans the midterms, while arguing that preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon was more important than congressional control. Her comments matter less as an electoral forecast than as evidence that concern about the war has reached the president’s own political circle.
The economic transmission mechanism is straightforward. A prolonged conflict can raise energy costs while tariffs can raise the cost of imported goods. AP reported that consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level since 2014, with gasoline, goods and services among the concerns cited by respondents.
Democrats are showing signs of stronger motivation
CNN’s latest analysis of early voting provides another piece of the picture. More than 690,000 Americans had already voted across at least 29 states. In Iowa, Democrats accounted for 67% of ballot requests, compared with 54% at the same point in 2024. The comparable figures were 66% versus 62% in Pennsylvania, 57% versus 53% in Maine and 42% versus 36% in North Carolina.
Virginia offers an even sharper illustration. CNN found that localities that backed Kamala Harris by more than 20 points in 2024 had reached 78% of their turnout from the equivalent point that year. Localities that backed Trump by more than 20 points had reached only 61%.
In Virginia’s competitive 1st and 2nd congressional districts, Democratic primary participants currently outnumber Republican primary participants among early voters by 15 and 18 percentage points respectively. In 2024, the two districts were much closer.
Still, this is not a vote forecast. CNN notes that the current figures are heavily influenced by mail voting, which has become more Democratic in recent elections. Early voters are also older than the electorate overall. Republicans could narrow the gap as more in-person voting begins.
The House is particularly exposed
The early-voting figures become more consequential when placed alongside the congressional battlefield. Republicans currently hold 218 House seats to 212 for Democrats, with one independent and four vacancies, meaning Democrats need only a net gain of three seats for control.
The Cook Political Report shifted 15 House races toward Democrats on September 25. Its latest ratings show 185 Democratic seats and 176 Republican seats classified as solid, with another 23 Democratic and 29 Republican seats in the likely or lean categories.
Recent Washington Post polling illustrates why Trump's standing matters even in individual districts. In Virginia’s 1st District, Democrat Shannon Taylor led Republican incumbent Rob Wittman 50% to 46%, within the poll’s margin of error. In the 5th District, Republican John McGuire led Democrat Tom Perriello 51% to 45%. Both contests are being fought in districts Trump won in 2024.
The GOP still has political assets
The numbers do not amount to a uniform rejection of Trump’s agenda. Immigration remains one of his stronger issues, while 67% of Republicans in the AP-NORC poll still blamed factors outside Trump’s control for high prices. Republican leaders also retain substantial financial resources and Trump remains capable of mobilizing the party’s core voters.
That is why the early-voting data require caution. CNN itself notes that the more than 690,000 votes counted so far represent only a fraction of the tens of millions of votes eventually cast. The partisan composition of early voters can change substantially before November 3.
The central midterm question is consequently becoming more specific. It is not simply whether voters approve of Trump. It is whether dissatisfaction with the economic consequences of his policies is strong enough to overcome the Republican coalition’s continuing attachment to his broader agenda. With gas prices, tariffs and Iran now intertwined with household concerns, Republican candidates in competitive districts are being forced to campaign in an environment where separating themselves from Trump may be difficult, while embracing his record carries its own electoral costs.
