Inside NBC News’ polling averages: Democrats enjoy biggest lead yet in the race for Congress

Democrats are heading into the final stretch of the 2026 midterms with their largest lead yet in the race for Congress and President Donald Trump’s approval rating at a significant low, according to NBC News’ newly released polling averages. A 9-percentage-point advantage for Democrats when it comes to control of Congress is part of a steady deterioration of the political environment for Republicans. The parties started the road to this November effectively tied in the weeks after President Donald Trump returned to office last year, but independents have gradually begun to prefer a Democratic-controlled Congress. And those voters have soured on Trump and his economic policies in particular. The congressional average, which stands at 52% to 43% after adjusting to a likely voter scale, measures whether Americans prefer a Congress controlled by Democrats or Republicans before things like individual races and candidates come into play. Individual polls can bounce around, but an average gives a broad sense of where surveys are trending, and it controls for outliers, which is one reason NBC News released our averages now. At a time when a flurry of polling is released, such as in the homestretch of an election cycle, averages can be valuable tools for tracking what’s happening in the election and diving deeper into how Republicans, Democrats and independents view Trump and the battle for Congress. The NBC News averages are weighted calculations of all publicly available polls that meet certain standards for methodology and transparency tracking back to the beginning of the second Trump administration. With a month to go before the midterm elections, Trump’s approval rating has slid to 39% in the NBC News polling average, with 59% disapproving of his job performance so far. He began his term at 50% approval, according to the average. Independents drive the shift toward Democrats There has been little change over time among partisans in the race for Congress, with the vast majorities of Republicans and Democrats standing with their parties consistently. As a result, much of the shift toward a preference for a Democratic-controlled Congress can be explained by the changing preferences of political independents. Independents preferred Democrats by about 6 points at the beginning of Trump’s second term, and they slowly moved toward Democrats toward the first half of last year. But things began to shift more rapidly during fall 2025 and early 2026, moving to a lead of about 20 points for Democrats in the spring — as public frustration with Trump’s handling of the economy, the war in Iran and the killings of two Americans by federal immigration officers began to boil over. The Republican Party hasn’t fully recovered with independents since, and Democrats now hold a 16-point lead among those voters in the race for Congress, according to the average. While survey responses don’t automatically translate into election results, such a strong showing among political independents is one of the many encouraging signs for Democrats heading into the election. Even so, it’s no guarantee of electoral success for Democrats as Republicans seek to find a way to energize the coalition that sent Trump to the White House just two years ago and narrow the gap before Election Day, more than a month away. Republicans also hope they can defy the political headwinds because so many of the key battleground House and Senate races are being fought in districts and states Trump won in 2024, some by double-digit margins. What’s behind Trump’s low approval rating For Trump, movement among independents — and Republicans, to a lesser extent — explains his low marks from voters. His approval rating among Republicans fluctuated in the mid-to-high 80s for the first six months of his second term, but now, his GOP approval rating is at 79% in a slight but noticeable decline, according to the average. Independents’ approval of Trump has dropped further, to 26% in the NBC News average. Voters have specifically soured on his handling of two of his signature issues — the economy and border security and immigration. In April 2025, an NBC News Decision Desk Poll powered by SurveyMonkey found 40% of American adults approved of Trump’s handling of inflation and the cost of living, while 60% disapproved. By this April’s poll, 32% approved and 68% disapproved. Inside the averages Every polling average reflects decisions about which polls to include, how much influence to give them and how to account for differences in whom pollsters survey and how they go about it. Some polls survey all adults in the U.S., which includes people who aren’t registered to vote or who aren’t eligible to be registered, such as recent immigrants. Other polls specifically survey registered voters. A third set of polls — which become more frequent as the clock ticks down to Election Day — are polls of a population that pollsters identify as likely voters. Likely voter polls try to capture the attitudes of the group of people who will actually cast ballots, a moving target for polling organizations given the impossible task of predicting voter turnout exactly. Those three sample universes produce slightly different results on our two key questions. Polls of all adults consistently show a lower approval rating for Trump compared with polls of registered or likely voters. Likely voters are likelier to have made up their mind on the generic ballot question about control of Congress, and as a result, both parties receive higher vote shares among that group. Both our presidential and congressional averages combine those three universes by adjusting polls of adults and likely voters so they are on the same scale as registered voters. However, because the congressional ballot preference is a question about how people will vote, the congressional average shifts to show a likely voter baseline after Labor Day.