A word from the pollsters: is it a blue wave or a blue tsunami?

Americans are heading to the polls angry about fuel prices, tired of the war in Iran and increasingly disillusioned with a president whose approval rating is amongst the lowest in modern history. “He casts his shadow, for better or worse, over this contest,” Lee Miringoff, director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion, tells Il Foglio: “Tension is sky-high. America remains a 50-50 country.” Pollsters and political scientists interviewed by Il Foglio describe a president whose endorsement once guaranteed victory for Republicans but who is now almost a liability for candidates: “With Donald Trump so unpopular, the Republican Party really has a dead weight to carry,” says Alexander Theodoridis, associate professor of political science at UMass Amherst and co-director of the UMass Amherst Poll.

“It’s easy to run against an incumbent president, especially if his approval rating is around 30 per cent.” The president’s party almost always loses ground in the mid-term elections, but the real battle is in the Senate, where the Democrats need a net gain of four seats. “Nobody thought the Senate would even be up for grabs,” says Miringoff: “It’s not so much that the Republicans are abandoning Trump, but rather that independent voters are dissatisfied with those in power and with the economy. And the blame is being laid at Trump’s door. Meanwhile, even traditionally Democratic states like Michigan and Minnesota are hanging in the balance. So the narrative is the same, but the conclusions are different.”

Seven Senate races are considered too close to call: Texas, Maine, Ohio, Iowa, Kansas and Alaska – all seats currently held by Republicans – plus Michigan, a Democratic seat up for grabs. Nebraska, where an independent is neck and neck with the Republican candidate, completes the battleground. Almost all the races are within the margin of error, and in some states, such as Maine and Alaska, the count could take time: control of the Senate could remain undecided for days, perhaps weeks. “Will it be a blue wave or a blue tsunami?”, asks Mark Cunningham, director of polling at Overton Insights: “For the Italian reader, I’d say there are two races to follow closely: the Senate race in Texas and the one in Maine. If the Democrats win both, they’re in a very strong position; but if the Republicans win both, I think it will be a much less decisive Democratic victory.”

The Democratic Party remains unpopular, and pollsters describe a vote driven more by anger towards Trump than by enthusiasm for his opponents. “Nobody is voting for these Democrats in most of the contests,” says Cunningham. “They’re just voting against Trump.” In 2016 and 2020, the polls had underestimated the Republicans: Cunningham warns that a margin of error of two or three points in their favour could allow the Republicans to retain the Senate. No contest is more telling than the one in Texas, where the Democrats last won a Senate seat in 1988. Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney general, owes his nomination to Trump, but the October Marist poll puts Democrat James Talarico at 47 per cent and Paxton at 45 per cent. “Texas is a solidly Republican state. It has been for decades,” says Cunningham. “And what’s remarkable is that it’s not just Texas that’s up for grabs. There are places like Iowa and Ohio – all states where the Democrats are favourites in the Senate or, at worst, it’s a toss-up.”

Scandals have also overshadowed other key contests. In Alaska, a New York Times article alleging that allies of the Democrat Mary Peltola had helped recruit a second candidate with the same name as the Republican Senator Dan Sullivan has triggered state and federal investigations. Peltola denies any involvement, and Trump has called for her to be removed from the ballot. In Maine, the Democrats replaced their original candidate, Graham Platner, following allegations of sexual harassment. In Ohio, Republican Senator Jon Husted is challenging Sherrod Brown against the backdrop of a corruption scandal in which he has been named as a person of interest, although he has never been charged. “Generally speaking, candidates and campaigns don’t make much difference. What matters more is how people feel things are going,” says Theodoridis. The culture wars of recent election campaigns have taken a back seat; voters have more immediate concerns, and “the issues that matter to voters in this election strongly favour the opposition party,” observes Theodoridis.

Prices top the list: petrol, food, healthcare and the cost of Trump’s tariffs dominate voters’ concerns. The war with Iran is a close second, and voters see a direct link between the two, with petrol now at around $4.27 a gallon, roughly one euro a litre. For many who voted for Trump in 2024 on the promise of ending wars abroad and bringing down prices, the war has become a broken promise. Immigration, once his strongest suit, has slipped down the list as border crossings have fallen. New anxieties are also emerging, ranging from AI to local data centres. “The economy remains the number one concern, but the war comes a close second,” explains Tim Malloy, deputy director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “The president has said it will all blow over, but Americans don’t believe him. The war is continuing, tariffs are in place, petrol prices are still high, so it’s a tough road for the Republicans right now.” Three weeks before the vote, Trump struck a deal with Putin to buy Russian diesel and blamed Zelensky for high fuel prices. “It was a good story for a day,” says Miringoff: “Trump has always been a bit like that. He keeps changing the narrative and the agenda.”

Ukraine plays a marginal role in the campaign, even though the majority of Republican voters still side with Kyiv against Moscow. The war in Gaza is attracting more attention, particularly amongst progressives, and Arab-Americans and American Muslims – once a silent electorate – have become a force in several swing states, notably Michigan and Minnesota. In Michigan, the Democratic Senate candidate, Abdul El Sayed – a Muslim with pro-Palestinian views – could galvanise Arab voters, whilst pushing some Jewish Democrats, traditionally a reliable component of the party’s coalition, towards the Republicans. “Trump did very well among Muslim communities when he ran for president because he essentially said: I want to end this war,” says Cunningham. “I believe that many Muslim voters who voted for him in 2024 are not very happy with him today.”

Muslim voters are just one of the threads unravelling within Trump’s 2024 coalition. The most marked shift is among Hispanic voters. Trump won almost half of the Hispanic vote in 2024 – a historic record for a Republican – but since then his approval rating amongst Hispanic voters has fallen to 24 per cent, the lowest of his two terms in office. Independents have also turned against him, as have Republicans who never fully embraced the ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) movement. According to the UMass Amherst poll, between March and August the proportion of Republicans identifying as MAGA fell by 9 points. America remains deeply divided, more by party loyalty than by policy issues. Few voters are willing to be swayed. For this reason, the election will be decided by who turns out to vote, and on the Trump side, enthusiasm is waning. “There are many Republicans who are dissatisfied with Trump as president,” says Cunningham. “And it’s not that they’ll vote for the Democratic candidate: the risk is that they’ll simply stay at home.” A Democrat-led House of Representatives could launch investigations into the Administration and scrutinise its spending, whilst a Democrat-led Senate would decide the fate of Trump’s appointments. Together, the two chambers could closely scrutinise the easing of sanctions on Russia, oppose tariffs and press for a withdrawal from the war in Iran. Their power to change policies, however, would remain limited.

Heavy defeats on Tuesday could turn Trump into a lame duck overnight. Republicans who distanced themselves during the campaign may continue to do so even after the vote, and others may join them, particularly those who will face the electorate in 2028, when Trump’s name will no longer be on the ballot. Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the leading contenders to succeed him, would begin to position themselves. “The Republican Party is Donald Trump’s party at least until Tuesday,” says Miringoff. Should the Republicans hold their ground, Trump is expected to remain a driving force. In any case, “the 2028 presidential campaign begins on Wednesday”.