Frederica Freyberg:
What kind of bellwether were elections earlier this month in other states that saw Republican candidates on the losing end? And how do recent partisan fights over affordability of everything from health care to groceries play into outcomes in midterm elections next year? We turn to Marquette University Law School poll director Charles Franklin, out this week with his latest national poll. And Charles, nice to see you.

Charles Franklin:
Good to be here.

Frederica Freyberg:
So in terms of that first question, what do you think of whether November 4 outcomes in other states are more than just kind of a cyclical swing?

Charles Franklin:
I think they show us where the country is right now, or at least where those states were. It’s true that it’s not a surprise that Democrats won those two states for the governorship. But remember, Virginia elected a Republican governor four years ago and is now elected a Democrat by a large margin. Maybe more important for here in Wisconsin, Democrats picked up 13 seats in the Virginia House of Delegates, going from 51 seats to 64 seats. That was a remarkable shift. And the problems we saw there on inflation, on the economy are the same things we’re seeing in national polling.

Frederica Freyberg:
So going into your national polling, in 2026 congressional elections, you found that among likely voters, 53% of respondents would vote for Democrats, with 44% voting for Republicans. Does that result surprise you?

Charles Franklin:
It’s a large result. That’s a nine-point gap. That’s very substantial. Interestingly, with registered voters, it’s a five-point gap, a little bit smaller. The difference between those is Democrats now are more likely to say they’re certain they’re going to vote in the fall. Now that’s seven points more likely in this national poll. So you’ve got both the preference for Democrats and the motivation to turn out. And those two things, together with the likely vote numbers, drives up that Democratic margin quite a bit.

Frederica Freyberg:
So one result that was the reason for the government shutdown, in this poll, you found 70% of respondents favor extending the ACA tax credits. How big of a driver do you think that issue will be in the midterms?

Charles Franklin:
I think it could grow. I think the fact that people have just begun to see what they’re insurance costs will be under the ACA for next year, if they’re buying insurance on the marketplace. Also, for the folks that are affected by those tax credits going away, some of their increases are quite large. We shouldn’t exaggerate how many people are affected, but it’s a significant number that are. Republicans are really going to have to deal with this in the Congress, with or without Democratic agreement. But what are they doing for their party? And does this issue build over the fall into the election, or does it kind of Peter out? We don’t know that yet.

Frederica Freyberg:
As to Trump’s approval rating in your poll, in this national poll, he sits at 14 points underwater with 43% approving of his job performance and 57% disapproving. But the wow number really here is that he’s 50 points underwater with independents with 25% approval and 75% disapproval. What do you make of that?

Charles Franklin:
Well, that’s a huge, huge problem politically and it’s politically a problem for the president, but also for Republicans going into the midterms because you can’t just win on your own party base. You need to pick up at least a good share of those 14% or 15% of independents in the country. And these are historically pretty abysmal numbers for any president with independents at this point. Maybe it’ll turn around. He’s still strong with Republicans, 85% approval with them and 5% with Democrats. But independents are an important swing vote. And I think every member of Congress or legislator that sits in a district that’s a close competitive district, especially, has to know that the independent vote in those districts could shift their margin three or four points one way or the other. That could be the difference between winning and losing.

Frederica Freyberg:
So as to that, transposing these national poll results to Wisconsin elections, what kind of warning signs do you see for Republicans in upcoming races for Congress, governor and even the legislature?

Charles Franklin:
Yeah, I think that what we saw in Virginia to come back to a real election, not just a poll, is that we saw Republican incumbents lose seats in Virginia that Trump had won by six points last time. So our competitive states here, sorry, districts, legislative districts here, are within that kind of margin. Now I’m not for a minute saying that we will see the same swing here that we saw in Virginia. But Virginia is certainly a test case to show that that four, five, six-point swing, even in an incumbent district held by a Republican is at risk this year.

Frederica Freyberg:
All right. Charles Franklin, we’ll leave it there. Thank you very much.

Charles Franklin:
Thank you.