Democrats are taking big chunks of GOP voters in key Senate races, polls show

Evert Nelson/The Capital-Journal/USA Today Network/Imagn Images

President Donald Trump has never had worse poll numbers with his base than he does ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

And a growing volume of polls shows a significant portion of that base is preparing to cross over and vote for Democrats.

New York Times-Siena College polls released over the weekend showed between 9% and 16% of Republican likely voters said they favored the Democratic nominee in five key states: Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio and Texas.

And these aren’t the only polls to show a sizable crossover effect — especially in the middle of the country.

All told, Democratic candidates have led among GOP voters by double digits in four key Senate races, and they lead by an average of at least 9 points in seven of the top 10 races , according to a CNN review of polling in each state.

Democratic candidates also seem poised to take an especially large percentage of Republican voters who don’t identify with Trump’s MAGA movement — often around one-quarter of them. This data comes with an important caveat: Polling in the last few presidential elections has underestimated GOP support. And there are some signs that those misses may have been driven by polls reaching the right number of Republicans overall, but not enough of the party’s — and by extension, Trump’s — strongest supporters.

If that pattern holds this year, it’s possible that GOP-aligned voters may wind up more supportive of Republican candidates than the polls suggest now. But it is worth noting that polling in the last midterm election, in 2022, did not exhibit this pattern.

Perhaps the most striking numbers in the new Times-Siena polls came in Kansas , which has recently emerged as a surprising battleground. The poll showed Democrat Adam Hamilton tied with GOP Sen. Roger Marshall at 45% among likely voters, with the Libertarian candidate at 5%.

So how has Hamilton made the race that close in red Kansas, a state that Trump carried by 16 points in 2024? The pastor has peeled off 16% of registered Republicans and 10% of self-identified Republicans. (By contrast, Marshall took just 2-3% of each category of Democrats, according to the survey.)

But Hamilton is not the only Democratic candidate pulling double digits among Republican voters. The Times-Siena poll showed Iowa Democratic nominee Josh Turek taking 12% of registered Republicans and 5% of self-identified Republicans. And the state representative also took double digits among self-identified Republicans in recent polls from Marist College ( 13% ) and Fox News ( 10% ).

In Alaska, Democratic former Rep. Mary Peltola took 13% of registered Republicans and 9% of self-identified Republicans in the Times-Siena poll.

And in Georgia, Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff was taking 10% of self-identified Republicans in the most recent high-quality poll, from Fox News in late June.

Other Democrats take slightly less but still significant numbers.

The Democratic nominees in North Carolina (Roy Cooper), Ohio (Sherrod Brown) and Texas (James Talarico) have all averaged 9% of the GOP vote in recent high-quality polls, according to a CNN review.

Among other Democrats: New Hampshire Rep. Chris Pappas was averaging 5%, former Maine state Senate President Troy Jackson was averaging 4%, and Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed was averaging 3%.

Thus far, the Democratic Party hasn’t matched the larger advantages in national polling. The so-called generic ballot, which asks people to choose between an unnamed Republican and an unnamed Democrat, shows Democrats averaging about 4% of Republican voters in recent high-quality polls.

But the numbers do recall some of Democrats’ results in the 2018 midterms, which was a strong year for Democrats overall.

Exit polls back then showed Democrats taking double digits’ worth of GOP voters in a number of states — West Virginia (17%), Arizona (12%), Ohio (11%), Pennsylvania (11%) and Wisconsin (10%) — and taking between 5% and 9% in the rest of the key races.

(While Democrats took more than 40 House seats from the GOP and benefitted from a favorable environment in the first midterm election under Trump, they did lose two Senate seats because they were defending some very red states.)

This year, Fox News polling also breaks out Republicans between MAGA Republicans and non-MAGA Republicans. And four Democratic Senate candidates have taken at least 21% of the non-MAGA Republicans: Cooper in North Carolina ( 21% ), Talarico in Texas ( 22% ), Brown in Ohio ( 25% ) and Turek in Iowa ( 28% ).

El-Sayed took 12% of non-MAGA Republicans in Michigan, while Democrats took 12% on the most recent national generic ballot.

And given Trump’s apparent base problems, if Democrats do have a historic night on November 3, that could be a group of voters we’ll be talking a lot about in the aftermath.

埃弗特·尼尔森/《首都日报》/今日美国网络/Imagn Images

在2026年中期选举前夕，唐纳德·特朗普总统在其支持者中的支持率从未像现在这样糟糕。

越来越多的民调显示，这部分选民中有相当一部分正准备倒戈，投票给民主党。

纽约时报-锡耶纳学院周末公布的民调显示，在阿拉斯加州、爱荷华州、堪萨斯州、俄亥俄州和德克萨斯州这五个关键州，有 9% 到 16% 的共和党潜在选民表示他们支持民主党候选人。

而且，这些民调并非唯一显示出明显交叉效应的民调——尤其是在美国中部地区。

总的来说，根据 CNN 对各州民调的分析，在四场关键的参议院竞选中，民主党候选人在共和党选民中领先两位数，在排名前十的竞选中，有七场民主党候选人的平均领先优势至少为 9 个百分点。

民主党候选人似乎也准备争取到相当大比例的共和党选民的支持，这些选民并不认同特朗普的“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动——通常约占其中的四分之一。但需要注意的是，过去几届总统选举的民调都低估了共和党的支持率。而且有迹象表明，这些低估可能是由于民调虽然覆盖了足够多的共和党选民，但却没有覆盖到足够多的共和党核心支持者——进而也没有覆盖到特朗普的核心支持者。

如果今年的民调结果仍然如此，那么共和党选民最终对共和党候选人的支持率可能会高于目前的民调显示。但值得注意的是，2022年中期选举的民调结果并未呈现出这种趋势。

《纽约时报》和锡耶纳学院联合发布的新民调中，最引人注目的数据或许来自堪萨斯州，该州近期意外地成为了选情胶着的战场。民调显示，民主党候选人亚当·汉密尔顿与共和党参议员罗杰·马歇尔在可能投票的选民中支持率均为45%，并列第一，而自由党候选人的支持率仅为5%。

那么，汉密尔顿是如何在堪萨斯州——一个特朗普在2024年以16个百分点优势获胜的红色州——将选情搞得如此胶着的呢？这位牧师争取到了16%的注册共和党人和10%的自称共和党人的支持。（相比之下，根据调查，马歇尔在民主党选民中只获得了2-3%的支持率。）

但汉密尔顿并非唯一一位在共和党选民中获得两位数支持的民主党候选人。《泰晤士报》和锡耶纳学院的民调显示，爱荷华州民主党候选人乔什·图雷克获得了12%的注册共和党选民和5%的自称共和党选民的支持。此外，这位州众议员在马里斯特学院（13%）和福克斯新闻（10%）最近的民调中，也获得了两位数的自称共和党选民的支持。

在阿拉斯加，民主党前众议员玛丽·佩尔托拉在《时代》-锡耶纳民意调查中获得了 13% 的注册共和党人和 9% 的自称共和党人的支持。

在佐治亚州，根据福克斯新闻在 6 月下旬进行的最新高质量民意调查，民主党参议员乔恩·奥索夫获得了 10% 的自称共和党人的支持。

其他民主党人的得票数略少，但仍然相当可观。

根据 CNN 的一项调查，北卡罗来纳州（罗伊·库珀）、俄亥俄州（谢罗德·布朗）和德克萨斯州（詹姆斯·塔拉里科）的民主党候选人在最近的高质量民调中，平均获得了 9% 的共和党选票。

其他民主党人中：新罕布什尔州众议员克里斯·帕帕斯平均支持率为 5%，缅因州前参议院议长特洛伊·杰克逊平均支持率为 4%，密歇根州众议员阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德平均支持率为 3%。

迄今为止，民主党在全国民调中尚未展现出与其整体优势相匹配的实力。所谓“普选”（即要求选民在一位未具名的共和党候选人和一位未具名的民主党候选人之间做出选择）显示，在近期高质量的民调中，民主党候选人的支持率平均约为共和党选民的4%。

但这些数字确实让人想起民主党在 2018 年中期选举中的一些结果，那一年对民主党来说总体上是强劲的一年。

当时的出口民调显示，民主党在多个州赢得了两位数的共和党选民支持——西弗吉尼亚州（17%）、亚利桑那州（12%）、俄亥俄州（11%）、宾夕法尼亚州（11%）和威斯康星州（10%）——并在其余关键竞选中赢得了 5% 到 9% 的支持率。

（虽然民主党在特朗普执政的首次中期选举中从共和党手中夺得了 40 多个众议院席位，并受益于有利的选举环境，但由于他们需要在一些共和党占绝对优势的州进行防守，因此他们失去了两个参议院席位。）

今年，福克斯新闻的民调还将共和党人细分为支持“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动的共和党人和非MAGA共和党人。四位民主党参议员候选人获得了至少21%的非MAGA共和党人的支持：北卡罗来纳州的库珀（21%）、德克萨斯州的塔拉里科（22%）、俄亥俄州的布朗（25%）和爱荷华州的图雷克（28%）。

在密歇根州，埃尔-赛义德获得了12%的非MAGA共和党选民的支持，而民主党在最近一次全国普选中获得了12%的选票。

鉴于特朗普的基本盘明显存在问题，如果民主党在 11 月 3 日取得历史性胜利，那么在选举结束后，我们可能会经常谈论这群选民。