With just a little over 3 months to go until the 2026 mid-term elections are held, a new survey is showing that would-be voters are almost evenly divided on which party they generally agree with on economic issues.
The survey, conducted by the Pew Research Center, reveals that 37% of respondents said they identified with the Democrat party on overall economic issues; while 36% indicated they were more comfortable with the Republicans on such matters.
That result would appear to be good news for the Republicans who are otherwise confronted with a historical pattern showing that the party in control of the White House during a mid-term election almost always loses seats at both the Congressional and gubernatorial level.
But when asked straight out which party’s candidate they planned to vote for in November, 43% said the Democrats and 37% said the Republicans – numbers that are daunting for the GOP, but not at this point suggesting the sort of landslide party change that has been seen in previous mid-term balloting.
Overwhelmingly, 29% of all respondents said they thought the state of the economy was the number one issue heading for the November elections, while 9% pointed to government ethics and reform, and 7% said immigration.
Curiously, for a president and political candidate who has dominated the landscape now for a decade, only 4% of respondents mentioned Trump as their most important issue. Yet, at the same time, among those who point to Trump as their main issue, 44% said they planned to vote for candidates opposed to him, while 22% indicated a preference for candidates who support him.
With the economy as the dominating topic, notes a Pew narrative, “neither party has an advantage on foreign policy or policies related to the use of military force, or on policies related to lesbian, gay, or transgender people – a Democratic strength in 2022 and 2023.”
The somewhat close party support indicated in the Pew survey comports with a new Economist/YouGov survey showing 46% of respondents favoring the Democrats, and 42% supporting the Republicans. In an even closer response, a new Reuters/Ipsos survey breaks down the current party support to 40% for the Democrats and 38% for the Republicans.
July 30, 2026
By Garry Boulard
Graphic courtesy of Unsplash
