GOP Trails Eight Battleground Senate Races, Polls Show

GOP Trails Eight Battleground Senate Races, Polls Show

The News

Republicans are trailing in eight battleground Senate races in the RealClearPolitics averages, with less than 70 days until the November midterm elections.

Democrats remain favored to regain the majority in the U.S. House, the Georgia Recorder reported Monday, citing Trump's weak approval ratings amid the war in Iran, worries about the economy, and a shift in the party's coalition.

President Donald Trump is already working to shift the blame onto congressional Republicans if the party loses big — an argument CNN called "flat-out wrong," because the latest polling shows voters think no better of him than of the GOP he leads.

Timeline

Aug. 31, morning

The Georgia Recorder reports the Republican path to holding the House is narrowing, with fewer than 70 days to Election Day.

Aug. 31

The Independent reports that with two months to go, Republicans are down in crucial battleground Senate races according to new aggregate polling, and quotes a top strategist warning of "historic losses" and record-low polling.

Aug. 31

RealClearPolitics publishes its own read of the averages — the GOP trailing in eight battleground Senate races — alongside a pollster arguing Republicans are in better shape than media polls suggest and that there is "a long way to go between now and Election Day."

Aug. 31

Fox News airs segments describing Republicans as "nervous" about a major Democratic victory, per AlterNet.

Reactions

On Fox News, host Stuart Varney warned that if Democrats flip one or both chambers of Congress, Trump's agenda would be halted and he could even be impeached, AlterNet reported.

A strategist quoted by The Independent said the GOP is in "pretty bad shape" heading into the elections.

Republicans are not conceding the map. A pollster cited by RealClearPolitics said, "I think the Republicans are in much better shape than what a lot of these media polls are showing."

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has launched a five-part series, "How to Win 2026," laying out a roadmap he says can deliver a historic Republican midterm win, Townhall reported.

The party's critics disagree about which wound is deepest. Cenk Uygur, cofounder and host of The Young Turks, told the Washington Examiner the GOP's biggest midterm vulnerability is not Iran or the economy but the Epstein files. A Hill opinion piece argued Republicans will be the ones who pay at the ballot box for Trump's tariffs.

What's Next

Voters go to the polls in November, with control of both chambers of Congress in play.

Between now and then, expect the fight inside the GOP over who owns a bad result — Trump or congressional Republicans — to get louder as more battleground polling lands.

More

The numbers here are polling averages, not results. The same aggregates that show Republicans behind in eight Senate battlegrounds also leave room for movement over the campaign's final two months, which is exactly the argument Republican pollsters are making.

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