US midterms: "Voters have become increasingly frustrated with President Trump"

Let's turn to our guest, Mallory Newell, Senior Vice President at Ipsos. Thanks so much for being with us tonight on France 24. You know, the polls are showing this will either be a good night for Democrats or a historic night for Democrats. Is that a fair assessment from from where you sit? Having me tonight? Yes, absolutely. I think going into Election Day, the biggest question was, how good of a year will it be for Democrats? I think the House was kind of a foregone conclusion, and the Senate was a toss-up. But we don't get to these historic Republican strongholds being in play and looking like Democrats having a path without some significant... Thank you. issues and headwinds for the Republican Party. And we've seen in our polling at Ipsos in recent weeks and months that voters have become increasingly frustrated with President Trump and the Republican Party on how they're handling the economy, issues related to affordability and the cost of living. And I think that's what's giving Democrats a path. Yeah, you mentioned the latest poll, Ipsos Reuters poll. I believe it had Trump's approval rating at 32%, a record low in either term. What exactly is driving that number? Frankly, it's largely the main issue. It is cost of living. It is affordability. It is, as you just said, people feeling squeezed everywhere. Our polling had shown some pretty clear signals that supported Democratic gains leading up to tonight. And approval is, I think, an important part of the story. So if you look over time, say over the past six months, you've seen two interesting things happen. One, President Trump, who I think won in 2024 largely because he was seen as better on the economy, his job approval on cost of living had significantly declined, just like his job approval overall. But you also saw a similar phenomenon where if you look at who voters prefer. On the economy and cost of living, the Democratic Party or the Republican Party, there was a significant movement toward the Democratic Party on an issue that had historically favored Republicans. Now, one thing that will be determinative in this election, of course, is turnout. So what do the polls say about voter enthusiasm in this election? Is it being driven, you know, a feeling against Trump or for the Democrats? And where are we seeing that enthusiasm more on the Democratic side or the Republican side? Yeah, Democratic enthusiasm has been eclipsing Republican enthusiasm for quite some time. We knew that going into the midterms. It was, I think, one of the reasons why the House was seen as largely going to go to Democrats. Thank you so much for joining us. But that enthusiasm gap has held even to today. And obviously, one thing that polling cannot predict ahead of time is turnout, right? Pollsters do their best to kind of figure out what an electorate could look like. But turnout plays a huge role. And I think what we're seeing unfold right now is Democrats are showing early strength in many of these states and in many of these districts. And it's largely due to historic levels of turnout. I'm actually also based in Michigan, and I heard a story earlier that in Dearborn, Michigan, there were some precincts that actually momentarily ran out of ballots because of voter turnout. Now, I just have to bring this up because in the 2024 election, we saw the polls underestimate Donald Trump by a few points. What can you say about this concept of response bias, that Republicans just don't pick up the phone when pollsters call? Our critique, and I think something to keep in mind. You know, the most hardcore MAGA voters, the ones that turn out in presidential years to support President Trump, certainly are very anti-establishment and may be harder to measure and perhaps more likely to stay home when the president's not on the ballot. I will say that polling has actually been more accurate in recent midterms, both in 2018 and 2022, I think perhaps because of that. There has been a lot of innovation that pollsters have done over the past 10 years and over the past few cycles, consistently looking at how we can improve, trying to figure out what an electorate looks like, whether that's the inclusion of educational attainment in our sampling and weighting, whether that's looking at past vote and actually looking at the 2024 presidential vote and including a specific number of Trump voters to make sure we're not undercounting them. Okay, Mallory, if you could just stand by, because I want to talk to you a bit about the issues motivating turnout in this election. But first, Doug, I just want to come back to you. If the Democrats do win in this huge wave as being predicted, is this really a repudiation of Donald Trump? This is really what it's about, isn't it? Well, you know, yeah, it's a repudiation In the states in which Democrats are voting, remember. Democratic bastions still remain predominantly in America, uh, in cities, uh, in their outlying suburban areas. When you look at the map of America, it's very deceptive because you see this large, almost Rorschach ink splotch of, of red. It looks like half the map is covered in red. And then you have these, these patches of blue on the map and it's deceptive because the blue patches are concentrated often in urban areas with. heavily dense, densely populated areas, which are the reason we see, you know, when all these states, when you see a seat being flipped in a deep red state, it's almost invariably thanks to voting, not in the rural counties, but more in the in the more densely packed urban districts, more concentrated districts here. I do think, though, that even given that, we are seeing, yes, we are seeing right now a trend in more voters who would have been disinclined. To if to not vote Democrat, at least not to vote for Trump. And we haven't passed elections. We've talked in the past, you know, a couple of hours about, you know, the changing demographic with young voters, those between age like 20 and 29. Also, Hispanic voters, a demographic which almost was was much more beholden to Donald Trump and really flocked to the polls to vote for him in 2024 in very large numbers. And it really that's boomeranged right back against Donald Trump, especially because of his immigration crackdown. So I think a lot of this conventional wisdom, what's become conventional wisdom in the Trump area, when you look across the map of America and think who votes red, who votes blue, that is changing. We're seeing that change almost in real time before our eyes tonight as these results come in. And, you know, and just one little case, not to get too granular on you, but we saw two districts in Florida, you know, red districts, Florida's 14th and 25th district, both being won tonight for the House by Democrats. And this is perhaps something that would not have happened in a less favorable, well, I would almost, I won't sit on the fence here, would not have happened. In a less favorable environment for for Democrats, it doesn't mean that Democrats, this is going to be a stark repudiation of Trump, because you have to remember, first of all, there's only 35 Senate seats being filled in this election. There's 65 more that aren't. Yes, all the House seats are being filled, but there are millions of Americans who aren't voting and we still have entire states which are deeply red and would never still would be extremely far fetched prospect prospect to see them voting for for a Democrat. There's a lot of the structural constraints in America that remain very much tied red, blue. But there are definite shifts as well. What the Republicans have had on their side, which makes perhaps the Democratic gains, these early gains, a little more, wow, eyebrow raising, is the fact that they've had a fundraising advantage, the Republicans. The money has been on their side. And they've also had an advantage in the so-called gerrymandering. What cynics called dummy mandering, which is the redistricting, redrawing your particular district in order to ensure that as many people who will vote for you and look like you are some in your district. It should be illegal. It isn't illegal. It's a reality in American politics. So the maps, the money have been on the Republican side and the Democrats have been seen as perhaps you confident as well. And that overconfidence by some was seen as a danger sign going into these elections. But so far tonight, the early signs are that the democratic optimism. Maybe, at least by the early showings, paying off. Yeah, and Florida was one of the states that was gerrymandered. Republicans had hoped to pick up four to five seats as a result of that. We'll have to see. It boomeranged right back in their face. It didn't work, the redrawing of the map. Yeah.