As the past is often prologue, much of the GOP is thinking today about the pounding the party took in 2006, the last time a Republican president led his party into the midterms for the second time.Older Republicans try not to let 1986 enter their heads.
(The GOP lost eight Senate seats that year.) A truth bolt about polling from the Washington Post on Friday gave some hope to the mainstream, especially in states that voted for President Trump in 2024.The Post revealed that its pollsters had made 85,000 calls and sent 50,000 text messages in Kansas seeking to measure support for Senator Roger Marshall, who is being challenged by Democrat Adam Hamilton.While 32% of Kansas Democrats answered the calls and the texts from pollsters, only 12% of the GOP voters did.
The Post conceded that these numbers provide "good reason to suspect the poll overestimates Democratic candidates’ support."THE SILENT MAJORITY PROBLEM AND WHY CAMPAIGN POLLSTERS KEEP 'FIGHTING THE LAST WAR' ON ELECTIONSThat concession about the reality of polling in 2026 should give every analyst pause before citing "the polls."There isn’t great public data on which either party can rely, but there is history.For the GOP, the year most analogous to 2026 is 2006, and that’s scary.
(The electorate is so different from 1986 that if it rhymes at all, it’s a reach.)In 2006, Republicans under President George W.Bush took a "thumpin’" — W’s term for the beat down of the GOP that year — so it is rational to consider the results from 20 years ago as a clear and present danger signal for Republicans.There are, however, some significant differences between this year and 2006, when the GOP lost a net 6 Senate seats and 30 House seats.FOX NEWS POLL: COST-OF-LIVING CONCERNS WEIGH ON GOP IN MIDTERMSGDP in Q3 of 2006 was reported at just 1.6% in October of that year.
(It was revised up to 2% later.) It is more than twice that this year, clocking in October at a very healthy 3.4%.Republicans can rightly p...