Name: New poll: Democrats seize advantage heading into midterms
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Brand new CNN polling giving us a fresh glimpse of the political landscape heading into this year's hugely consequential midterms.

President Trump, who will mark one year back in office this Tuesday, has been sounding the alarms about the prospects of a Democratic majority in the House.

And our poll suggests there is reason for his concern.

Democrats have a clear advantage when voters are asked which party they prefer to control Congress, A big sign they are enjoying tailwinds at this key moment.

They currently have a 5 point edge over Republicans 46 to 41, outside the margin of error.

On top of that, Democrats and Democratic leaning registered voters are far more enthusiastic than Republicans.

66% say they're extremely motivated to vote compared to just 50% of Republicans.

And that is a huge swing from October 2024 where Republicans were motivated by five points.

But it's not all good news for Democrats with our poll finding their leaders are still held in very low regard.

We'll break this all down and more with an excellent group of reporters this morning.

CNN's Alana train, Zolencondell Young's with the New York Times and CNN's Aaron Blake.

So look, this is the latest in a series of data points that are positive for the Democrats.

They won special election after special election.

They over performed even when they lost in these races and now Trump's numbers are bad.

Democrats have a five point advantage in the generic ballot.

Are these early signs of a potential blue wave?

If you look at history, this kind of advantage at this point in the cycle can lead to that.

I would say a five point advantage on the generic ballot is not commensurate with a huge wave election necessarily.

We have almost a whole year before the election takes place.

The thing in this poll that I think is really encouraging for Democrats is that enthusiasm edge which we've seen dating back to last summer.

The problem I think for Trump and Republicans right now is he is doing so many things that are testing the patience even of some portions of his base.

You know, Greenland is not popular with his base.

The tariffs are not terribly popular with his base.

Are people going to turn out for Republicans, for Congress if he keeps doing these things?

And I think that explains a lot of why Democrats have this advantage.

Yeah, that swing in the motivation is just something Republicans had a five point advantage in 2024 about a motivated base.

And you mentioned the wave compared to past elections.

Aaron did just look at where the things were back in January of 2018 and January 2010.

On this question of who should control Congress back then, Democrats in 2018 of January, they had a five point edge.

That was the Tea Party wave of 63 point 63 seats that Republicans picked up that cycle.

Zolan, you were just in with the president interviewing him not too long ago.

I mean, at this point, I think one of the issues with the messaging of the White House is you still have this defiance from President Trump when it comes to these political vulnerabilities.

When we were in the Oval Office, we were asking him about one of the issues that Democrats have really seized on here, which is the economy and affordability.

And those answers, I don't think they're really going to excite the base.

We asked him about the $2,000 checks, for example, that he promised Americans from his tariffs, the money generated from his tariffs.

And initially when we asked him, he actually seemed surprised.

He replied saying, wait, oh, I did that right.

He was actually surprised at those tariffs.

And then he pivoted to the checks that he said that would be going to the military.

And those are things that they're of course going to try to campaign on.

When it comes to when that's your reaction to being asked about some of these vague economic promises that are supposed to be addressing affordability, an issue that obviously the base cares about.

You were brought back to the White House because you ran largely on the economy and helping working class Americans.

When that's your answer, you know, that's, that's probably going to frustrate many Americans, including those in your base.

I think this poll, as well as some of those vague promises that he's made, it's a promising sign that the Democrats messaging thus far on the economy and affordability is starting to have some, some positive signs.

And before you jump in, another data point of which Republicans could have concerns about is a Cook political report.

They put 18 House races that they are analyzing here, all moving in the Democratic direction, that is from everywhere, from California to New York, all of several states in between.

What's your reaction to all, all these, what all these pieces of data showing things pointing in one direction.

I'll say this, they know they have a major problem in the White House.

And every conversation I have, at least privately, of course they're not going to publicly communicate this they know they have an issue and they need to get it in order.

What I found really interesting, actually

was when the President met a week or so ago now at the Kennedy center with a bunch of House Republicans and he kind of gave them this message, message.

And this is the message I know he's giving them in their private conversations to this idea of, you need to talk about our successes, you need to communicate all of the great things I'm doing.

And he's really putting the onus on House Republicans, of course, and Republicans in the Senate too.

But this was just a House Republican meeting.

The problem is when I talk to people, a lot of the President's allies outside as well, they say so much of what the President is doing.

And Aaron, you touched on this is actually getting in the way of that message.

Everything he's doing with foreign policy, a lot of the, you know, the focus on, on Greenland or the tariffs, but

also sometimes even when people are talking about Venezuelan and his language about wanting to run Venezuela, things like that they say are hurting them.

And that's something that the President, I don't think is fully kind of understood behind the scenes.

And the question is net asset or net liability?

Is Donald Trump's presence on the campaign trail?

I think that's a question that I put to the speaker of the House, Mike Johnson.

I asked him, look, you have purple Republicans running in swing districts, purple districts.

And how do you feel about the fact that Democrats have an edge in the so called generic ballot?

The generic ballot has Democrats up by about 3.

But if you look back at the last midterm, I think 2018 is a pretty good comparison.

They were up by three times that much at this point in the year.

I'm absolutely convinced we're going to go to the majority of the, we have an incredible record to run on.

You embrace Trump, your swing district Republican run with Trump?

These economic numbers are going to be off the charts.

People are going to be feeling very good about their incomes and their opportunity and their liberty, and

they're going to, they're going to reward Republicans for those policies.

And in a normal election, when you have a president who's in this position, who's as unpopular as Trump is, you keep your distance.

You don't talk about him, you don't welcome him to your district.

But Republicans need voters to be excited about Donald Trump to have their base turnout at all.

They have a problem where their votes, their base is very much focused on infrequent voters who don't necessarily come out in midterm elections, who certainly don't come out in these special elections that we've been seeing recently.

And so they can't just kind of shove him to the side and say, well, I don't really want to be associated with him, because so much of their base demands it.

And another piece of this poll is on the other side of the aisle.

The Democrats, they have had rock bottom approval ratings.

They may have been doing well in these special elections, but

their numbers are not good, particularly when it comes to how Democratic leaders are handling their jobs.

This is the question that was put in the CNN poll.