Pollster Scott Rasmussen Gives Republicans A Flashing Red Midterm Warning Sign
Pollster Scott Rasmussen warned Wednesday that if economic confidence remains at current levels, the Republican Party could be on track to take a shellacking in the November midterm elections.
Rasmussen, widely considered Republican-leaning, said on Neapolitan News Service’s Morning Briefing that the Republican Party would lose control of both houses of Congress if voters’ pessimism about their personal finances did not improve, adding that “the window is closing quickly” for mitigation measures. He also pointed out that much of this weak economic coincidence is due to the way President Donald Trump’s unpopular war in Iran is causing fuel prices to skyrocket.
“If the numbers we’re seeing today were the same as they were in November, Democrats would not only win the House, but they would almost certainly take control of the Senate,” Rasmussen said during Wednesday’s morning briefing. “Now, any improvement over that baseline starts to give Republicans a better chance of retaining the Senate, but for now, they’re starting in a pretty deep hole, and it’s going to take them a while to dig themselves out of it.” (RELATED: The Iran War Might Be the Least Popular Conflict in Modern US History)
“People caught up in the world of politics and campaigning tend to underestimate the impact of the economy on elections,” Rasmussen told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a statement. “But, as James Carville colorfully reminded us decades ago, the economy is the baseline for all elections. And how people view their personal finances is the best measure of that baseline.”
“If gas prices begin to decline in the not too distant future, it is likely that economic confidence will recover sufficiently by Election Day for the Republican Party to retain the Senate,” the pollster added. “That’s still the most likely outcome. That’s what I’m predicting at the moment.”
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) (C) leads a press conference with House Majority Whip (LR) Tom Emmer (R-MN), Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA), Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso (R-WY), House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA), U.S. Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) and U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) on 1st October 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Less than a quarter, or 24%, of registered voters in the United States said their personal finances were improving — a drop of five percentage points over the past two weeks, according to a Neapolitan News Service poll conducted by Rasmussen and released Wednesday. Meanwhile, 39% of respondents said their personal finances have worsened, an increase of eight points over the past two weeks.
“If gas prices remain high and extreme pessimism persists, it will put a serious damper on Republicans across the country. The Republican Party’s hopes of picking up a seat in Georgia or Michigan would disappear,” Rasmussen told DCNF. “Republican seats in Maine, North Carolina, Alaska and Ohio could be at risk. And if the environment is so negative, there’s always room for an unexpected sleeper race.”
Democrats need a net gain of four Senate seats to retake the upper chamber in November. They face an uphill climb to get there, given that all Republican Senate seats except Sen. Susan Collins’ seat in Maine are in states won by Trump in the 2024 election.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report calls the elections in Maine and North Carolina “toss-ups” and the seats in Alaska and Ohio “lean Republican.” However, it lists two Democratic-held seats — Sen. Jon Ossoff’s seat in Georgia and an open seat in Michigan — as toss-ups, meaning that if Republicans manage to flip one or both, Democrats should win another seat in an upset. The high-profile Senate race in Texas, which Cook calls “probably Republican,” is seen as a long-term opportunity for Democrats.
“It’s really hard to overstate how bad the latest numbers are,” Rasmussen said during his morning briefing. “To understand this, you have to remember that one of the main reasons President Trump was elected was to make the economy work for all Americans, and the group we define as mainstream Americans is even more pessimistic than the overall sample. »
Receive the biggest news of the day in under 8 minutes.@ScottWRasmussen covers:
1) Very bad news on the economy
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3) A look at the extent of partisan polarization. Is this justified? pic.twitter.com/0peVC57mOt– Neapolitan News Service (@NapolitanNews) March 18, 2026
“The worst numbers we’ve seen since Trump was elected,” the investigator continued. “Obviously, part of this has to do with the situation in Iran and the increase in gas prices. The reality is that most Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. When gas prices go up, they have less money for groceries, less money for entertainment. They feel the effects immediately.”
Rasmussen stressed that “Republicans need people to quickly start feeling better about their financial situation” and that “the window is closing quickly” for them to do that.
“When bad news comes, people’s confidence drops almost immediately. When good news comes back, it takes a while. For example, if the fighting ended tomorrow and the price of gasoline went back to where it was right before the fighting started, it would take about six months, normally, before the American people would start to get their confidence back to where it was,” he explained. “But if you think about it, in six months it will be mid-September.”
“They need to stabilize the situation to start moving the trend in that direction quickly, otherwise it’s going to be a really ugly election night,” he added.
Rasmussen conducted the Neapolitan News Service online survey of 1,000 registered voters March 16-17, with field work conducted by RMG Research, Inc. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
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