A Surprise for Trump

But not the good kind

Meet Donald Trump’s new state representative, Democrat Emily Gregory Credit: Getty Images

We know many of you are deeply concerned about our country, about our president, and what could be done to put the brakes on his increasingly dangerous radical agenda. Exactly 222 days from Thursday, we will know if the Trump train is derailed or full steam ahead. The November midterm elections could flip the House, the Senate, or both. Polling shows this president is seriously unpopular. So do actual voters.

In small off-year elections to fill vacancies in state houses across the country, we’re seeing a trend that is hard to ignore. Democrats are winning where they haven’t ever before. The latest example was in Donald Trump’s backyard.

In a stunning shift of political winds, the president will now be represented by a Democrat in the Florida State House. On Tuesday, first-time candidate Emily Gregory beat her Republican challenger in a special election for Florida’s 87th House District, which includes the president’s Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach.

Gregory, a small business owner, flipped the seat in a district Trump won by 11 points in 2024. Across the state in Tampa, Democrat Brian Nathan was expected to lose his bid for the State Senate. Instead, he flipped what had been a solidly red seat.

Neither victory will substantially change the makeup of Florida’s state government — Republicans still control both houses — but they continue a recent winning streak for Democrats. The national midterm elections remain, in political terms, a long way off. Still, there are possible portents in the wind.

For example: Since Trump returned to the White House, Republicans have flipped zero state legislative seats to the Democrats 30, many in ruby red districts in reliably Republican states like Texas, Arkansas, and Mississippi.

These victories come after Democrats ran the table in the 2025 elections, which included the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races. A Democrat is the mayor of Miami for the first time in almost three decades.

For now, Democrats are celebrating, rethinking their strategies and their expectations, while Republicans spin the news as being less meaningful off-year, special elections that usually have low voter turnout. The voters who do come out tend to be highly educated and highly engaged and, therefore, Democrats.

“In today’s hyper-partisan political climate, special elections animate a particular type of voter depending on who’s in power in Washington. This is a similar pattern we have witnessed and it really doesn’t mean anything in the general election right now,” said Ryan Tyson, a Florida Republican pollster and consultant to Politico.

Not everyone is as sanguine. “I’m ringing the alarm bell,” Brendan Steinhauser, a Texas Republican campaign consultant, told Politico.

Polling around Trump has never been easy to get right. Many pollsters have been burned by Trump’s latent and unusually loyal base. However, recent polling from Republican, Democrats, and independent pollsters is remarkably consistent and troubling news for the president’s party. His polling numbers are dropping as fast as gas prices are rising.

In the latest polls, Trump is underwater, way under, and they are the worst of his second term. Yahoo/You.Gov has him at -21, Reuters/Ipsos at -26 and Fox at -18.

For a country with a well established two-party system, American voters are also becoming disenchanted with labels. According to Quinnipiac, 45% of U.S. adults now identify as independents, only 27% as Democrats or Republicans.

These polls are serious warning signs for Republican’s chances in November. Independents, who helped get Trump elected, are turning away from him.

When independents are given a generic 2026 ballot, the Democrat wins with 57% versus the Republican’s 26%. That same hypothetical poll was conducted by Gallup in October 2018. The Democrat still won, but by seven fewer points.

In the 2018 midterm elections Democrats won big. At the time, Trump’s unpopularity was not as acute as it is today, yet Democrats handily won control of the House, gaining a 36-seat majority.

One of the biggest stories surrounding Trump’s 2024 presidential victory was the inroads he made with Hispanic voters. But that coalition shows signs of evaporating as Trump continues his aggressive immigration policies and reneges on his campaign promises to bring prices down.

“Hispanics are the single biggest drop-off group in terms of Trump’s current approval versus his 2024 vote share, other than independent voters,” said David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report.

Drop-off may be an understatement. Trump is down 48 points among Hispanic voters since December. Add to that, Hispanics are becoming more politically active. A CBS News analysis found a 37% increase in primary voting in heavily Hispanic districts over the three previous elections.

Don’t think for a moment the White House isn’t reading these polls. A panicked Trump is a treacherous Trump. His first gambit was to force states to redraw their congressional district maps to help Republicans, while disenfranchising millions of voters.

Some states such as Texas and Missouri have succeeded in redrawing their maps to favor Republicans. But others, like California, have countered Republicans’ efforts. Lawsuits are pending in 14 states, so the net outcome isn’t known yet.

Then we have the president’s global military “excursions.” The tough-guy act plays well with his base but so far, a month into his war with Iran, the public at large isn’t buying it. A survey by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 60% of Americans think the U.S. military action in Iran has “gone too far.”

We may never know for sure, but it’s not too much of a stretch to tie Republicans’ electoral prospects to Trump’s rushed attack on Iran and his underestimation of that country’s retaliatory capability. While reports from Trump, the Pentagon, and major newspapers paint a very one-sided conflict, Iran has bombed nearly every U.S. military installation in the Middle East, rendering them uninhabitable, according to The New York Times.

The support staff that once lived on those bases now runs the war remotely from as far away as Europe. Thousands of service members have been relocated.

Via social media, the Iranian government is asking to help identify where the military has relocated. “It is your Islamic duty to accurately report the hiding places of American terrorists and send the information to us…” This comes at the same time as Trump is sending thousands of ground troops into the Persian Gulf area. Some are Marines, some Army airborne.

Trump’s former Secretary of Defense James Mattis told an energy conference in Houston yesterday, “We’re in a tough spot, ladies and gentlemen, and I can’t identify a lot of good options.” Mattis added, “If you look at the Texas Gulf Coast, that’s about 367 miles, that gives you an idea of how difficult this will be for the U.S. Navy to try and protect ships in that shipping lane, 600 miles down the Gulf, 100 miles through the Strait and then out into the water.”

There was a time when rational adults like Mattis tried to steer Donald Trump clear of his worst choices. Now his cadre of sycophants only enables his aberrant and destructive behavior. The voters are watching. We are 222 days from their decision.

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Stay Steady,
Dan