IF TRUMP IS HATED, WHY AREN'T THE POLLS PREDICTING MORE DEMOCRATIC BLOWOUTS?

I saw this chart at Reddit. The numbers appear to be accurate.

In many states, Democratic Senate candidates are running more than ten points better than Kamala Harris did in 2024. Some or all of these candidates could win in states that have been widely regarded as red.

But if red-state Democrats are running a dozen or so points better than Harris, why aren't purple-state Democrats doing the same thing? In addition to the less-than-spectacular numbers being put up by the Democratic Senate candidates in Michigan, Maine, and Minnesota, why does Democrat Chris Pappas have only a two-point lead in the New Hampshire Senate race, according to the Real Clear Polling average? Harris beat Trump in New Hampshire by 2.78%. Why isn't New Hampshire's Democratic Senate candidate trouncing the Republican in what seems like a very Democratic year?

You could argue that this comes down to "candidate quality." Pappas is running against John E. Sununu, whose father and brother were both popular New Hampshire governors. In Maine, Troy Jackson is an unpolished speaker who was a replacement for primary voters' overwhelming favorite, Graham Platner. In Minnesota, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan needs to outrun the corruption scandal that brought down Governor Tim Walz. And in Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed has been demonized by both the GOP and members of his own party.

But shouldn't there be some Democrat who's about to win a landslide in a purple state? Maybe it will be Jon Ossoff in Georgia or Roy Cooper in North Carolina, but so far, I see only one huge win developing for Democrats in purple America: Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro currently has a lead of more than twenty points in his reelection bid.

I keep thinking about the late-June New York Times poll of Maine, in which respondents said they preferred a Democratic Senate to a Republican Senate by a double-digit margin (54%-42%), but also gave Graham Platner, who was still running at the time, a lead of only two points over Susan Collins. Sure, Platner was a special case -- but it's as if voters in some states don't see that the way you get a Democratic Senate is by electing Democrats.

I think a major problem is that Democrats don't tout the Democratic Party -- progressives attack it from the left, while moderates brag about bipartisanship and wear their Democratic affiliation almost apologetically.

And Democrats don't attack the Republican Party.

This seems absurdly simple, but: Republicans talk *all the time* about how Democrats are bad. Not this or that individual Democrat, but the party, the ideology, the very idea of Democrats. Democrats almost never do this about Republicans. Not in a coordinated, concerted way.

— David Roberts (@volts.wtf) September 5, 2026 at 3:17 PM

This was the ideal year for Republican-bashing: not only is the Republican president wildly unpopular, but every Republican is his enabler, apart from a few who are hounded out of the party if they don't enable him.

You might not like Hasan Piker, or agree with him about the appeal of leftist policies, but I nod in agreement when I hear him attack Democrats' calls for "a strong Republican Party":

No, I want no Republican Party. I'm going to be very honest with you. I want an ineffective, feckless, weak -- kind of like the Democratic Party is currently. I want the Republican Party to be like that. I want a Republican Party that is utterly dominated and humiliated in broad daylight that people are embarrassed to say that they're voting for a Republican. That is the reality that I want.

Whatever you think of this, it's true that in large swaths of the country, the Democratic Party "is utterly dominated and humiliated in broad daylight" and "people are embarrassed to say that they're voting for a" Democrat. This could have been a year when Democrats expanded the much smaller area of the country in which the same is true for Republicans. We should have given more people in the heartland a new narrative to consider: not "Republicans are the go-to party, but this particular Republican president is so uncharacteristically bad that I'm considering a totally counterintuitive vote for a Democrat, which I'm sure I'll never repeat," but "Actually, Republicans suck in so many ways that I can't understand why everyone around here likes them." I think there are a lot of soft supporters of the GOP who would be receptive to that message.

Even if Democrats are highly successful this year, two years from now they'll wish they discredited the GOP more, because Donald Trump won't be on the ballot. Meanwhile, they're doing fine now, but they could be doing better.