00:00Alec Tyson, Senior Vice President of Lead Pollster, Ipsos U.S. Public Affairs is with us on this broadcast.
00:06Alec, good morning. Thank you for your time and for joining us here on India Today.
00:10What do you make for all of the opinion polls that are coming in and the projections, Alec?
00:15Are you in line with that? Do you believe that Democrats have the edge here?
00:19Yeah, the polling shows clear signals to support the Democratic Party,
00:23and the chart you have on the screen is an important part of the story.
00:25We've really seen a change in President Trump's approval rating just in the last six months.
00:30For much of his term, he was in the low to mid-40s in approval.
00:33Around the Iran war, higher gas prices, real pressure on affordability.
00:37We saw the president's ratings move down into the 30s,
00:41and that's changed how Americans think about this mid-term landscape.
00:45They've moved away from the Republican Party on some issues and towards the Democratic Party,
00:50particularly on the issue of the economy.
00:53Do you think that the number one issue on which Americans are voting today is on the economy, on inflation?
01:00Absolutely, but I think the economy is a very broad term.
01:03It's much more specific and in some ways personal for Americans.
01:06They've been living through high prices and the affordability pressure for many years.
01:11And two years ago, those same issues helped power President Trump to a presidential election victory.
01:16But as time has gone by, the winds have changed, and Americans now increasingly direct their economic frustration towards the
01:22president.
01:23So absolutely, it's the economy, but it's very personal.
01:26It's prices, it's affordability.
01:27It's a sense that it's hard to get ahead in this country today.
01:31Alec, just one more question also, which is on a point that Gaurav made,
01:35that it's quite common for the incumbent to lose these midterms.
01:38So are we reading way into this than we should?
01:42Well, it is common for the incumbent to lose seats in the House of Representatives.
01:45And polls suggest Democrats will have a very strong night in the House of Representatives.
01:49But the Senate is a very different map.
01:51We have states in play tonight, like Texas and Kansas, that historically have been very Republican in their voting behavior.
01:58So it's only in a very strong Democratic environment that we're even talking about those states.
02:03So, yes, Democrats or the party out of the White House typically gain seats in the midterms.
02:07But this cycle seems to be different in that some of the states we're talking about in the Senate
02:11would only be in play in a very, very strong Democratic year, and we'll know soon enough.
