Democrats have a sizable advantage in the battle for control of Congress days ahead of the midterm elections, a new national NBC News poll finds, with voters clamoring for change and voicing all-time high disapproval of President Donald Trump.
Registered voters prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress by a 7-point margin, with Democrats leading Republicans 52%-45% — 2 points more than in last month’s poll. That includes a 21-point lead among independents.
Three percent of voters remained undecided as the poll was conducted from Oct. 28 to Oct. 30, and how they shift in the final days could tilt the outcome in dead-heat House and Senate races around the country. While the overall poll suggests that Democrats are poised to capitalize on a well of dissatisfaction with the president and his policies, there are findings that complicate the favorable picture.
When it comes to which party better handles key issues, voters give Republicans and Democrats about even marks, and the Democratic Party remains deeply unpopular. Meanwhile, Republican voters in GOP-held districts and in states Trump won in 2024 are sticking with their party — which is notable because much of the battle for control of both the House and Senate runs through this red terrain.
But there are also numerous signs of trouble for the GOP, with Trump at the center of a difficult political environment for Republicans and their slim majorities in both houses of Congress. The president’s disapproval rating has climbed to 60%, a new high mark in the NBC News poll across his two terms, and his approval rating stands at 40%.
After Trump won a second term in 2024 promising to bring down prices and restore the economic conditions of his first term, roughly 3 in 4 voters head into the midterms dissatisfied with the state of the economy. Nearly two-thirds of voters are calling for a change from the direction Trump has been leading the country, with 50% calling for “a great deal” of change, a new high mark in NBC News polling data.
And for the first time in 30 years of NBC News polling, more voters say they are dissatisfied with their financial situation (51%) than satisfied (49%).
“The Trump presidency can be summarized as the promise of two years ago and the peril of two days from now,” said Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies.
Horwitt noted Trump returned to the White House after promising economic prosperity and peace. But now voters are expressing widespread concerns about the economy, with prices rising during the Iran war.
Amid those concerns, 64% of voters — including a third of Trump voters — say the president has fallen short of their expectations, with 34% saying he has lived up to them. Seventy percent of voters say the country is on the wrong track, a 9-point increase over the last year.
Voters continue to rank inflation and the cost of living as the most important issues facing the country, followed by government corruption, threats to democracy and immigration and border security.
“Democrats are in total control of the 2026 issue agenda,” said McInturff, the Republican pollster, noting that only voters who think immigration is a top issue are breaking for his party right now.
Democrats have a 1-point advantage on which party would better control inflation, a slight decline from September but still a warning sign for the GOP, which led on the issue in 2024. Republicans have a 2-point advantage on the economy, a marked decline from the party’s double-digit advantage on the issue in recent years.
Voters are also signaling that they are fired up about the midterms, with 70% ranking themselves as a “9” or “10” on a 10-point scale of interest in the election. Democrats have a 12-point advantage among those most-engaged voters, while Republicans have a 2-point edge among voters who are less interested in the election.
Self-described MAGA Republicans also say they’re significantly more interested in the election than Republicans who don’t identify with the MAGA wing, as Trump and his party push to turn out voters who typically sit out midterm elections.
That dynamic could be one reason why Republicans have leaned into culture war arguments in key races, attacking Democrats on transgender issues. The new poll shows a potential limitation of that strategy: Democrats have a 5-point advantage on the question of which party would better handle transgender issues, despite those Republican attacks.
It’s not all good news for Democrats, and the poll contains fresh signs that a number of voters are pushing back on the GOP, as opposed to falling in love with the Democratic Party, which remains deeply unpopular.
Just 29% of voters view the Democratic Party positively, while 38% have positive views of the Republican Party. Around half of voters have negative views of both parties.
Still, some voters who are wary of Democrats are still planning to support them this year.
“Republicans have proven that they are not to be trusted. So I would rather see the balance of power shift, than maintain one party’s control,” one poll respondent from Texas, who voted for Trump in 2024 and is supporting Democrats for Congress this year, said in an expanded response.
“I don’t trust Republicans or Democrats, really,” the man added.
Republican disappointment
Frustrations among voters like that man from Texas, who backed Trump in 2024 and typically backs Republicans, are dragging down the president and GOP candidates this year.
Republicans are torn on whether the country is moving in the right direction (48%), or the wrong direction (43%). One year ago, Republicans said the country was going in the right direction, 75%-24%.
Now, a majority of Republicans (53%) are dissatisfied with the state of the economy. And 37% of Trump’s own party believe he’s fallen short of his promises.
Trump still maintains an important hold on his base, with near-unanimous job approval (93%) among Republicans who say they support the MAGA movement. But he’s slipped significantly with Republicans who don’t consider themselves part of the MAGA movement: 54% of them approve and 46% disapprove of his performance. Meanwhile, 20% of those non-MAGA Republicans say they prefer to see Democrats control Congress after this election.
The president has seen other important voting blocs drift away, too.
His net approval rating has dropped 18 points among white voters without college degrees compared to the first NBC News poll of his second term, in 2025. He’s also seen significant declines among young voters and Latino voters, groups that he overperformed with on his way back to the White House in 2024.
One of Republicans’ big advantages in 2026 is a favorable political map: Democrats have to win back districts and states Trump won in 2024 to take back Congress. In the Senate, they need to win at least two states Trump carried by double-digit margins.
But the president’s approval rating is underwater in states he won in 2024: 53% of registered voters there disapprove of his job performance, while 47% approve. In March 2025, his approval rating in those states was 10 points higher.
Democratic warning signs
There are some warning signs for Democrats, on top of the fact that a lower share of voters have positive views of the Democratic Party compared to the Republican Party.
The fight for control of the House and especially the Senate will take place in Trump-won areas, and Republicans are leading on the congressional ballot in GOP-held districts and in states Trump won in 2024. The big question is whether that’s enough to withstand shifts in some key places.
Government corruption has been a central theme of Democrats’ message this year, but voters narrowly trust Republicans to better handle the issue by 5 points. Even so, Democrats are leading on the congressional ballot among the 28% of voters who do not trust either party on the issue.
Republican leaders in Congress are also slightly better off than their Democratic counterparts, but that’s mostly because voters don’t know how to feel about them.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has the highest positive rating of congressional leaders: 24% have positive views of him and 34% have negative views. Just 10% of voters have positive views of Johnson’s counterpart across the Capitol, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, while 22% view him negatively.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is viewed positively by 18% of voters and negatively by 35%. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, who’s led Democrats in the body for almost a decade, is far better defined — to his detriment. Just 13% of voters view him positively, and 53% view him negatively.
“It’s not great for the Democrats … for 2028,” said McInturff, the Republican pollster, when asked about the low marks for Democrats. “But I don’t see it as a barrier for how well they can do in 2026 when midterms are about Trump and these economic numbers.”
Half of voters have negative views of tech billionaire Elon Musk, who has emerged as one of the most prolific Republican donors in the country over the last two years, while 34% view him positively.
Voters are more split about a pair of prominent progressives, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Sanders is more popular: 41% view him positively and 42% view him negatively, while Ocasio-Cortez’s numbers stand at 31%-42%.
Democrats hold a significant lead in the battle for Congress despite those factors. But there are indications throughout the poll that the party’s lead is propped up strongly by anti-Republican sentiment, not warm feelings for Democrats.
Voters who want Democratic control of Congress are divided between whether their vote is more in favor of Democrats or driven more by opposition to Republicans.
“Get your s— together, Democrats,” an Ohio Democratic woman said when asked what message she wanted to send with her vote this year. “I’m voting for you, but work it out.”
The NBC News poll surveyed 1,000 registered voters Oct. 28-30 via a mix of telephone interviews and an online survey sent via text message. The margin of error is plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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