Republicans would have turnout challenges in the 2026 midterm elections regardless of how President Donald Trump was doing. After all, his base has proven they largely only come out in droves when his name is on the ballot.
So what happens when we add in Trump’s historic unpopularity and a series of moves that have alienated even many of his own supporters?
We’re starting to find out, and it doesn’t look good for the GOP.
A series of polls in recent weeks have taken an early look at enthusiasm and motivation to vote ahead of the 2026 election, and Republicans are suffering from a real deficit.
The party has trailed significantly on such measures for months, as CNN polling has showed. But what’s particularly remarkable is how unenthused Republicans are, compared to other recent midterm elections — including those involving Trump.
A Washington Post-ABC News poll this week, for instance, showed 73% of Democrats said the upcoming election is more important than past midterms. But just 52% of Republicans said the same.
That’s well shy of the 72% of GOP voters who said the same in September 2022, as well as the 63% who said the same in October 2018, just ahead of the last midterm when Trump was in office.
Similarly, the most recent CNN poll from late March showed just 48% of Republicans agreed that their vote would be cast to “send a message that you support Donald Trump.”
That was far less than the 76% of Democrats who said their vote would be cast to send a message of opposition to Trump.
And it was also far less than the 71% of Republicans who said their 2018 vote was intended to show support for then-President Trump, in a CNN poll in November of that year.
It’s also a smidge below the 51% of Democrats who said their 2022 midterm vote was meant to show support for then-President Joe Biden in October of that year.
That’s particularly striking because Biden has never commanded anything close to the level of loyalty and devotion in the Democratic Party that Trump has in the GOP. And yet, their numbers are similar.
Also, an NPR/PBS News/Marist poll released Wednesday showed the percentage of Democrats who say they’re “very enthusiastic” about voting today (61%) is about the same as October 2018 (60%). But Republicans’ number has dropped from 65% back then to 53% today.
In all of these numbers, we’re comparing polling from the spring of this year to later polling in previous midterms. And it’s possible GOP enthusiasm picks up in the months to come, as often happens when the election is more imminent.
But comparing the recent polling to previous springs tells a similar tale.
The Post-ABC poll, for instance, showed 72% of Republicans said they were “certain to vote” in the midterms. That’s less than Democrats (79%), and it’s also less than where both Democrats (78%) and Republicans (83%) were at about this point in the 2022 cycle.
And that 2022 Democrat number was, quite notably, before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and gave the party a shot in the arm. It also occurred when a less-galvanizing Biden was in office. But it was still higher than where the GOP is today.
Finally, a Marquette University Law School poll last month showed just 28% of Republicans and GOP-leaning independent voters said they were “very enthusiastic” about voting in the midterms.
That’s 19 points less than the number for Democrats and Democratic-leaning independent voters (47%). It’s also far less than the May 2022 number for Republican-leaning voters (50%) and less than the May 2022 number for Democratic-leaning voters (34%).
Shortly after that May 2022 poll was released, the Supreme Court swooped in and changed the midterm calculus by overturning the long-held constitutional right to an abortion. And plenty will happen in the six months between now and when voters render their judgments.
But right now, the GOP’s non-presidential-election turnout problem is looking even more problematic than usual.
The story headline has been updated.
