If you reached this Balkingpoints article by direct external link, stop by the front page for a rotating satellite view of the earth at night
source: MS Now / March 25, 2026
These are just snapshots yet they tell a definitive story, about the unpopularity of Donald Trump. The latest are from this week, 2 Florida Legislature special elections. Trump carried these districts in 2024 by 9 and 11 points. They both flipped blue on Tuesday.
If Republicans were seen opposing his nonsense & chaos act, it might be different. Instead they are in lock step, allowing it to stand and independents aren’t having it. That’s how you win a district you lost decisively 2 years ago. Those voters have & are, shifting.
GOP’s have just 7 months to turn this around before facing voters in the 2026 midterms. This article link – from a right wing publication no less – goes into some further detail about the trend.
This on the heels of the VA and NJ governor elections last November, in which the Republican also fared poorly. Independents had left the tent by year’s end, then Trump sent thousands of ICE agents to Minneapolis in what looked nothing short of a military occupation. It’s a US city and no president does that. 2 Americans were killed while exercising their civil right of dissent.
Corporate-owned major media outlets typed up the stated justification – “child care fraud”. Sign up to enforce immigration laws apparently, and get turned into the fraud police…
The point is that if you think swing voters / independents are hunky dory with that, you badly misread them. Now a military assault on Iran out of nowhere, lives lost as a result, and gasoline skyrocketing.
Just 7 months, Republicans. What might be the plan from here…
Reuters / March 20-23
CNN today. Student of USA politics since Nixon / McGovern as a kid. I’ve never seen an approaching midterms, where there was this much working against the incumbent party. Perfect-storm territory for a blue landslide in November.
Republicans are not unaware of it. I doubt they’ve had positive internal polling since Trump imposed tariffs last April – despite admonitions from even the Wall Street Journal, which called them “dumb”. But R’s seem frozen on the tracks as the freight train approaches.
When poll numbers are this tilted, nobody supports you except for a hard-core base. You’ve lost independents, almost entirely ;
Remember that NJ Governor election last November? That the GOP’er lost by double digits after News Media Inc had spent weeks insisting that Trump had a strong base of support in NJ. Gov. Mikie Sherrill vacated a U.S. House seat, which was won tonight by Analilia Mejia, again decisively. Per CNN ;
“Vice President Kamala Harris won the district by 9 points in the 2024 presidential election, while Sherrill carried it by 15 points in her gubernatorial campaign last year”
See the trend in this district since 2024? What is happening is that independents are in exodus if they voted GOP that year. Trump has emptied the tent with his monumental incompetence since then. They are either sitting out now, or if angry are coming in to the Dem tent.
“Hathaway largely avoided talking about Trump on the campaign trail.” 😄