“Trump’s approval rating drops among White working-class voters,”Polls shown declining approval for President Donald Trump among White working-class voters and rural voters, but that doesn’t mean they’re all swinging to Democrats in the midterms” according to Chris Kenning at USA Today. An excerpt: “Since Trump first ran for president a decade ago, White working class and rural voters have been an important base of support, drawn to his vows to bring back manufacturing and crack down on immigration. In 2024, 2 in 3 White working-class voters backed him, according to research group PRRI’s post-election survey. Trump won 69% of the rural vote in 2024, according to Pew Research Center exit polling…But polling over recent months has shown rising disapproval from those groups, reaching majorities in some polls, especially on the economy – fueling a potential new vulnerability for Republicans heading into midterm elections that will determine control of Congress…A CBS News-YouGov poll in May found 54% of White, noncollege voters disapproved of Trump’s performance, up from 32% in February 2025. That disapproval hit 49% in a June NPR/PBS/Marist poll and 51% in an April Fox News poll. Among rural voters, a June Reuters/Ipsos poll found 48% disapproved of Trump, up from 34% the month after he returned to office…“The decline is significant given that White working-class voters were a pretty stable support between 2016 and 2020 for Trump after trending Republican since the early 1990s,” said Noam Lupu, a Vanderbilt University political science professor…The main driver of the discontent is higher prices for necessities like gas and food, pushed up by the Iran war and tariffs, experts said…an April NPR/PBS/Marist poll found 44% of White noncollege voters said they were more likely to vote for a Democratic congressional candidate than for a Republican, up from just 30% ahead of the 2018 midterms. That could come into play in rural states…In Iowa, for example, which Trump carried by 13 percentage points in 2024 and whose six House seats are held by Republicans, The Wall Street Journal reported that the race for governor and two of its four House seats are now rated as toss-ups amid rural economic angst.” More here.

From “Susan Collins May Be Chuckling, but She’s in Far Worse Trouble Now” by Editor Michael Tomasky at The New Republic: “…Collins could well be in far more trouble with a new Democratic nominee. Kamala Harris beat Trump by seven points in the state. And as I noted above, in a recent poll, respondents said that for Congress, they’d choose a Democrat over a Republican by 53 percent to 42 percent. On top of that, Democratic gubernatorial nominee Hannah Pingree, who will be at the top of the ticket, looks like she’s going to beat her Republican foe by around 15 points. That means Collins is going to have to convince a lot of independents to switch from the D column to the R one as they move down the ballot from governor to senator…And what’s going on now, nationally and in Maine, is a strong anti-Trump sentiment—and a GOP incumbent senator who voted to confirm 22 of Trump’s 23 Cabinet nominees…What the Maine Democratic Party, and to some extent the national Democratic Party, has to do here is run a process that is widely accepted as having two qualities: It must be transparent, and it has to feel fair. The party needs to give voters and citizens regular updates on the process—this is happening today; this is happening next Tuesday—so that everyone feels they’re in the loop and no one feels sandbagged. And it needs to feel fair so that in the end, everyone at least feels that they need to accept the outcome.” More here.

Douglas Schoen and Carly Cooperman write at The Hill: “For Democrats, the opening is real and the timing could hardly be better. Just 32 percent of registered voters say the country is “on the right track” per Economist/YouGov polling…Likewise, Trump’s approval ratings continue to hover near record lows — 40 percent approve versus 58 percent disapprove per RealClearPolitics. And on the economy, which the housing bill could have addressed, it’s even lower, sitting at just 36 percent approve…Democrats’ lead in the generic congressional ballot is steady at 6 points according to RealClearPolitics, but among Hispanics and independents, Democrats have a 34 and 15-point edge, respectively, according to Emerson polling…Aside from bringing the Senate to a virtual halt, the optics of Trump refusing to sign a housing bill until he gets his way on the SAVE Act, which Thune has repeatedly told Trump can’t pass, are ideal for Democrats. Republicans had been counting on a very public ceremony to show voters that they are committed to lowering costs, but Trump’s actions robbed them of an excellent opportunity…The campaign ads write themselves: “The president wants to make it harder for you to vote rather than make it easier for you to live” as one political strategist said in a recent interview…” More here.

It’s easy enough to rebut election-deniers with compelling evidence from dozens of court decisions and studies of election integrity. But that won’t stop them from being on midterm ballots in significant numbers. Read “All The Places Election Deniers Could Be in Charge of Elections After the Midterms” by Khaya Himmelman at Talking Points Memo, who says: “In an increasingly ominous trend, there are currently hundreds of election deniers on the ballot for the 2026 midterm elections. And although history has shown election denialism is not a winning campaign strategy, it continues to be a powerful force in the right-wing movement, from President Donald Trump on down…According to the nonpartisan non-profit States United Action, there are at least 140 election deniers currently running for statewide and congressional office. In statewide races, there are at least 42 election deniers running in 23 states. And in congressional races, there are at least 98 election deniers running in 25 states…“We’ve been tracking this movement since right after the 2020 election. And one thing we can say about the election denial movement now is that it seems to be more powerful than ever,” Kelly Rader, research director at States United Action, told TPM…“In some ways it reflects how election denial has matured into an organized movement,” Brendan Fischer, director of strategic investigations for Campaign Legal Center, similarly told TPM… “Election denial is no longer just a collection of fringe activists and isolated candidates making unsupported claims of election fraud,” Fischer added. “It’s really evolved into a well-funded, coordinated infrastructure of activists and advocacy organizations that has transformed the fringe conspiracy theories into a cornerstone of the conservative movement…Of particular concern are the election denial candidates running for secretary of state positions, potentially putting an elected official who has denied the integrity of a free and fair election at the helm of election administration in a particular state.” More here.