Heh. This reminds me of Robbie the Robot, when he would intone, “Danger, Danger.” There is a Robbie at the Republican National Headquarters and its name is Cygnal, the Republican House campaign committee’s pollster. Cygnal had a little chat the other day with the troops and the message was in DC speak a very, very loud warning:
Warning Signs: For the first time in two years, voters whose top priority is inflation and the economy now prefer a generic Democrat for Congress (D+13) over a Republican. Democrats also now lead by six points (D+6) on the generic congressional ballot, marking the largest single-month shift toward Democrats since after Biden dropped out of the presidential race. This poll is a warning sign for Republicans heading into 2026 and demands a recalibration of messaging.
Simon Rosenberg continues, “That the battlefield has shifted by 7 to 12 points towards the Democrats in the past year – making it likely the House flips and puts the Senate in play – is now also being confirmed in state polling showing our candidates competitive in 2026 battleground states like Alaska, Florida, Iowa, Ohio, Texas and ahead in Maine and North Carolina. Read this new writeup of a just-released right-leaning poll in North Carolina documenting recent and significant movement towards Democrats and a top Trump ally and former RNC Chair Michael Whatley getting blown out (thanks to Elizabeth T for sending this to us):
Democrat Roy Cooper has widened his lead over Republican Michael Whatley in the race for North Carolina’s open US Senate seat next year, according to the latest Carolina Journal poll of likely voters.
The survey puts Cooper’s support at 47% compared to Whatley’s 39%. That result doubles the 4% margin Cooper had in CJ’s September poll — which had 46% for Cooper, the state’s two-term former governor; and 42% for Whatley, a former national and state Republican Party chairman. The numbers return Whatley to the wider 8% margin seen in August when Cooper’s support sat at 47% and Whatley’s at 39%.
The CJ poll also queried voter perspectives on Don Brown, another Republican candidate who has thrown his hat into the ring in the GOP primary for the US Senate seat. Brown performs slightly worse than Whatley against Cooper, at 38% support.
“Cooper’s lead continues to benefit from strong name recognition among voters,” said Carolina Journal publisher and John Locke Foundation CEO Donald Bryson. “If Whatley or Brown want to have a chance in this race, they will need to get in front of voters and raise their own public profile.”
Momentum for Democrats is also showing up in races for the state legislature. In a generic ballot test, Democrats went from a 1.6-point deficit in September to a 4.1-point lead this month. The poll shows 47.3% of respondents saying they would vote for a Democratic legislative candidate, while 43.2% said they would support a Republican.
NC voters also appear to be souring on the direction of the country and North Carolina as well. Only 38% say the country is going in the right direction — down 4 percentage points from September and down 9 percentage points from August — while 55% say it’s on the wrong track. That is the largest net “wrong track” margin recorded by the CJ poll this year.
Every single Republican candidate in competitive races across the country is going to be seeing data like this in the coming weeks. Every single one of them. And they are not going to be happy, not happy at all.
3 – Trump is clearly in ill health and unwell, and it is not clear that he can continue to do the job. He feel asleep for twenty minutes last week at an event AT HIS OWN DESK – he wasn’t sitting in a crowd watching others. He is now inventing, confabulating, lying at just Olympian levels of untruth and delusion, signaling that his cognitive decline is accelerating. His walk has become increasingly labored. And now this MRI thing. Trump was asked about it again yesterday. Just listen to his response, tell me, just tell me, that you think man is still capable of doing the job:
Or tell me, just tell me, after reading this you think he can continue to do the job:
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I think we have to start visualizing, and socializing, the idea that it just might be time for him to go. I’ve put together this initial working list for why it just might be time:
- Cover up of his involvement in notorious sex trafficking ring
- Unprecedented corruption, self enrichment
- Tariffs are historic, unprecedented abuse of power
- Illegal desecration of most important global symbol of American democracy
- abandonment of Ukraine and our European allies, appeasement of Putin
- extraordinary assault on our health care system and the public’s health
- lighting the engines of our prosperity on fire, ceding the future to China
- starving Americans to gain leverage in Hill negotiations
- killing of 15 million of poorest people in the world through vaporizing of USAID
- weaponozing DOJ to pursue his political opponents
- use of Marines against Americans, trampling of due process, disappearing innocent people to foreign gulags
- illegal killings of dudes in boats on the high seas
- profound physical and cognitive decline, often appears confused and frequently confabulates
- high likelihood he is compromised by a hostile foreign power, or hostile foreign powers
Over the next few months as thousands of ambitious Republicans running in competitive races across the country next November come to terms with how unpopular he is, how indefensible his agenda has become, how in your face corrupt and venal he has been, how old and crazy he has gotten, how hard it is going to be to run and win under these conditions, the talk will get louder….
It just may be time everyone. Time for him to go.
It was time for Trump to go and stay gone back in 2020. In any kind of a normal political world that would have happened. But we don’t — or didn’t — live in a normal political world. There has been way too much apathy about government and that has gotten us where we are. If only 12 more votes per precinct had been cast for Kamala Harris we wouldn’t be having this conversation. We lost by the skin of our teeth.
But, politics contains silver linings and we have seen the beginning of this with the off-year election ten days back which was a bloodbath for the Republicans. Trump is dragging the party down.
Once again I quote Lincoln (this is a paraphrase of sentiments he expressed in different speeches:) “Public sentiment is everything. With public sentiment nothing can fail. Without it, nothing can succeed.” People’s sentiments are going against Trump every time they stand in the checkout line with their groceries.
“This reminds me of Robbie the Robot, when he would intone, “Danger, Danger.””
Minor nitpick but that was NOT Robby the Robot. That was the “unnamed” Robot from “Lost in Space.” (Both robots were built by the same man, Robert Konishita although Kinoshita’s involvement with Robby was perfecting the design and building the robot from designs by others.)
IMO…..excellent post! TYVM.
so the usual republican strategy of change messge not policy. i’ll back that.
i’m confused as to which bits above are from the republican pollster and which from rosenberg, who is a democratic strategist.