The Daily Blast: Trump Hit by Fox Poll Shocker that Undercuts His Latest Midterm Tirade

I'm your host, Greg Sargent.

A Fox News poll of Texas shows Democrat James Teleriko leading by three points, but here's what's really striking about this survey.

It finds Donald Trump underwater by nine points in Texas, a state that he won by 14 points less than two years ago. Those are stunning numbers for the lone star state, and if Democrats are suddenly competitive for the Senate, numbers like that explain why. All this comes as Trump just unleashed a crazed tirade about his poll numbers, one that strongly suggests he is zero interest in helping his party in the midterms. It now feels like time is running out for Trump to turn things around, and we may be within striking distance of getting the election that Democrats really want.

So we're talking about all of it with Democratic strategist Sawyer Hackett, who knows Texas and has worked on midterm elections as well, Sawyer, good to have you back on. Great to be with you, Greg. So let's just start with this bizarre rant from Trump. He posted this quote, "My real poll numbers, not those made up by the fake news media are the best they have ever been, and why wouldn't they be with the biggest tax cuts and employment numbers ever? The biggest outside investment in America and world history, a totally secure border, a giant victory in Venezuela, the denuclearization of Iran, unparalleled respect and success throughout the world, and much more close quote.

“Sawyer, does that litany of made up successes sound like a description of what majority see in this presidency?”

Based on the polling that we're seeing across the country right now, it looks like Donald Trump's coalition has fallen apart. I mean, he's atrophied severely with latino voters, atrophied severely with black voters, atrophied severely with young voters and especially independent voters who are running away from him across the country, you know, in all of these major swing states and all of these states where we have major Senate races. And that's really going to be the tipping point I think for the midterm cycle.

And by every metric things are not going in the right direction, let's talk about this Fox News poll of Texas. It finds Teleriko leading Republican Ken Paxton by 51 to 48 among registered voters. Before we get into the head to head, let's talk about Trump's numbers in Texas. CNN's Harry Anton flagged this, Fox has 54% viewing him unfavorably there versus 45% viewing him favorably.

“So here, as someone who knows Texas, can you explain how shocking it is for Trump to be nine points underwater in that state?”

It's absolutely shocking for him to be nine points underwater in the state, especially this far out from the election. I mean, Donald Trump won Texas by I think more than 13 points in 2024. It's a state that has consistently been read over the last 30 years, and when we haven't elected a statewide Democrat in Texas for many, many decades. And so over cycle, over cycle, we've gotten closer and closer to kind of flipping the state.

But Republican numbers, especially Republican incumbents, have always kind of performed better in Texas because it is a state that is fairly conservative.

It's also a state that's fairly independent. It's one of the most unafiliated states in the country. And those voters, while they claim to be independent, tend to break towards conservatives, tend to break towards Republicans in some of these statewide races. And so yeah, it's shocking to see Trump, you know, underwater nine points with still a couple more months through your former months until the election. When this is a state just a few, you know, a year and a half ago that Trump won by almost 14 points.

You brought up independence. The Fox poll finds that 78% of the independence view Trump on favorably versus 18% who view him favorably. That's 60 points underwater and 50% of independence in Texas in the Fox poll have a strongly unfavorable view of Trump.

“Sawyer, have you ever heard of numbers like that? Can you explain why independence matters so much in Texas?”

Yeah, you know, as I mentioned before, independence, you know, make up huge chunk of the electorate in Texas. It's one of the most unafiliated states in the country. And I think independence have largely shaped how Democrats have performed of the last 30 years. As I mentioned, they've kind of broken towards Republicans towards conservatives in each of these statewide races. But I think independent voters more so than any other specific demographic are responding to what's happening with the economy.

I mean, you look at this poll and you look at the breakdown of what are the most important issues voters care about.

To independent, especially, it's affordability. And on cost of living, you have James Tallarico running away with the issue we can paste in who I think has been kind of bogged down and mired in personal scandal and kind of trying to overcome that with the electorate.

So Tallarico being focused on affordability is turning those independence in droves over to the Democratic side.

Yeah, and I think it's interesting that you say that we have to be alert to the possibility that independence break away from Democrats at the end. But numbers like these would suggest that we're looking at maybe a muted effect if anything like along those lines. It looks like Tallarico's going to win this demographic. In fact, the Fox poll has Tallarico beating packs them by 39 points.

“Among independence, clearly Trump is driving that, yet at the same time, packs them as winning by really overwhelming margins among non college white voters and rural voters. That's why it's so close despite Trump being shockingly underwater there.”

What's your candidate assessment of the real state of the Texas Senate race right now? My assessment is that Tallarico is in a really prime position to take this victory in November. And I think it's kind of a perfect storm in Texas where you have a really faulty candidate on their public inside who's turning away independence and not necessarily able to keep that coalition intact. And a democratic nominee who's able to kind of reach across the aisle towards independence who are really disillusioned with what's happening on the economy. You know impressions you look at these pollings and you look at the cross tabs impressions are much more firm of Ken Paxton in these polls than they are of Tallarico and there's still something like 14% of Texas voters who are undecided at this point in the race.

From this point on through November, you're going to see a day lose of millions and millions of dollars of negative ads. I think especially coming from the right against James Tallarico that are going to be trying to peel away some of those independent voters from him. A lot of them are really fixed on that cost of living issue and that's been the issue that Tallarico has been dominating on in the race. So really I think it's a matter of whether you know Tallarico can keep running up those margins, we can keep running down Trump's numbers in the state.

And hopefully we can get to a point where heading into the GO TV part of this race, the day lose of money that we're going to see coming from the right isn't enough to dissuade enough independence away from Tallarico.

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Thank you and back to the show.

And you can see a few other spots that Tallarico really has got a firm up here. For instance, Fox has Tallarico winning among Hispanics by 59% to 41%. The last time you were on here, you said that one of the key pieces of a Tallarico victory is to really run up the margins and some of those southern Texas counties that are very heavily Latino.

“It seems to me like he isn't quite there with Hispanics if that Fox number is right, doesn't it?”

Well, and we talk about the Trump coalition of 2024, the reason he was able to kind of have such a wild swing to the right across all these different states and all these different demographics. That coalition was built on winning over support from Latino and Hispanic voters in places like Texas, winning over younger black men, winning over younger voters in general. That coalition has completely collapsed and I think Texas embodies that collapse more than any state in the country. The Texas Tribune, just a couple of weeks ago, had a poll out that said one in five Latino Texans who voted for Trump in 2024 would not support him again and two thirds of Latinos in the state disapprove of the job he's doing as president.

Those are not numbers that you can compete in the state like Texas whose electorate has become so more diverse and so much younger and so much more urbanized. And in all of those places in all of those areas, Donald Trump is atrophying his support among voters, not gaining.

“I would assume though that we should all breathe a little easier if tell or you go get up into the 60s with Hispanics, right?”

I think it would be it would be a lot better if he was winning over a bigger share of the Latino vote in Texas. If you look at it compared to 2024, it's a pretty wild swing, a 30 point swing towards Democrats. That being said, historically to compete in the state like Texas, I think you need to run up those numbers really high.

There's been a lot of conversation, especially post primary, whether tell or he could win over black support, especially after that kind of dust up during the primary cycle.

Looks like he's doing a lot better with black voters than he was just a few weeks ago. I'd like to see those Hispanic numbers come up a little bit, but the coalition is looking pretty strong. Yeah, the story seems to be that the coalition's coming together, we still have some spots where he's got to do better.

“I think he's got to probably keep the numbers down a little bit in some of these rural areas as well.”

To your point about the swing among Hispanics from 2024 to the present, again, fox has it at 59 to 41 in Tallarico's favor among Hispanics.

We really shouldn't overlook the deeper importance of this. As I think you alluded to, the swing to Trump in South Texas among Latinos was widely held up by countless pundits and commentators and analysts as a sign that there had been something like a permanent realignment in US politics. And now that has entirely evaporated. So this swing away from Trump among Texas Latinos is a major major story shows that lots and lots of people really overread the significance of 2024.

“And I really think we should underscore that. Can you talk about that?”

I think that's absolutely right. And I think that's not just a story that's happening in Texas. That's happening in states across the country, especially in these states with major predominant Hispanic population like Texas. You know, that coalition Donald Trump's coalition in 2024. I think was an aberration. I think that those voters were largely reacting to an economic situation in which affordability was the top concern for voters and they did not feel like Democrats were serious enough in addressing it.

And at the time had a nominee or a president, a president incumbent president in Joe Biden who was not kind of addressing their concerns. What we've seen is that coalition was not actually intact at all. And mostly they were responding to the national environment, which is what we want to happen right now in in 2026 in the midterms. We want those same voters to be looking at the national environment and to be upset by what they're seeing in terms of cost of living in terms of these foreign wars in terms of these tariffs that are driving up prices in places like that.

That prices in places like Texas. So really, you know, I think what we're seeing is a new new dynamic with with Hispanic voters and black voters that are much more responsive to what's happening in that exact national moment as opposed to kind of just, you know, winning over voters on cultural issues or whatever it may be from Trump.

“Because some cause for concern going forward about whether if Democrats can pull these voters back how permanent is that. But I think the story here is that Trump's 2024 gains with these demographics proved incredibly fleeting, right?”

Yeah, it was it was never an actual in in tax coalition as far as I can tell. I think this was again, an aberration. I think Democrats can can do a lot to win back those voters. That being said, if we come out of this midterms cycle and we've won, you know, 63% of Latino voters nationwide. We should not rest on our laurels that they're going to come back out and turn out for us in 2028. We have to be laser focused on telling our story to all parts of the coalition, including Hispanic voters about why they should support us, why they would, them and their families would be better off under democratic policies that support them and help lower their costs.

100% couldn't agree more. Let's listen to something CNN's Harry Antonsetable about all this. He points out that if Telerico is really ahead in Texas, even if it's a small amount, three points, then all of a sudden numerous other Senate races are in play, then he sights the prediction markets. Listen to this. All of a sudden you put Texas in play. You put the places like Iowa, Ohio in play. You know, you're talking about Alaska being potentially in play. Look at this chance to win the Senate. Now it's basically an even race Republicans were three to two favorites a month ago. Look at where we are right now. Now Republicans chances have fallen significantly just a 53% chance to take the cold on the United States Senate Democrats have a real shot indeed.

So I don't know how much stock to place in prediction markets, but it seems to me the story here again is Trump Trump Trump. If you want to know why the Senate's in play, a big part of it is Trump being nine points under water in Texas, and what that says about the possibilities in Ohio, in Iowa and places like that North Carolina, right? Our ability to compete in all of these major Senate states is mostly going to be a reaction to where Trump is. You know, where costs are at the time, what Trump's approval rating, are we still at war with Iran and the straightaway moves is still shut down.

All of these are factors that are going to play into the national environment around Trump. And you know, right now we're having this discussion in the Democratic Party about, you know, what what these results mean for the party and where we should take things.

And right now they have a current administration that's driving their prices up on gas on groceries is kind of causing them massive chaos and corruption on a daily basis that they had they're having to deal with.

“And right now I think voters are looking at the situation they want to turn the page. It's kind of a throw the bombs out election. And I think if you're seeing a state like Texas be that competitive.”

The kind of brackets for what's available to Democrats is pretty wide. You know, we have to gain four net seats in this midterm cycle in the Senate.

We have to defend Georgia and Michigan. We have to, you know, look at flipping states like North Carolina and Maine, but then maybe we also look at states like Iowa and Texas and Iowa and Texas may be kind of in that bracket of states that help protect our majority. If say we win one seat, one, you know, Senate seat majority, and then John Fetterman decides to flip to the other side. I think we need to have that buffer and a state like Texas I think is right within that wheelhouse of what's achievable.

But so is a state like Alaska so it was a state like Iowa so it was a state like Ohio and North Carolina so we're competing in all of these states, but I think Texas right now James Talarico is kind of putting forward a playbook on how to compete in the Trump era.

“He's staying focused on affordability, staying focused on corruption and honing his own message and not getting into this back and forth over culture war crap that they're trying to put out against him.”

I will say one thing about Talarico though, in addition to all those things you said there on some level he is campaigning against the kind of moral rot that Trump and mega have voiced it on the country and that's what I really like about him as well.

This laser-focused on affordability, but he isn't afraid to really speak in lofty moral terms about what's happening to this country right now.

I find that to be, I've said this before and here, but it's like he's found this new politics for the era of late stage Trumpism or end stage Trumpism, where everybody's just had it and just wants to move on and wants to see something better on this country than this complete maniac completely unleashes on this every single day. Day in and day out. What do you think of all that is, is Talarico and maybe Osloff as well, John Osloff and George is developing a language too. Are you seeing a language come together here? That's a little bit new and different.

I am and you know, I don't necessarily think that it's tied to ideology, right? Like in both of those candidates both Osloff and with Talarico. I also think you're seeing it in states like Michigan with someone like Abdul Elsaid.

These are not necessarily just focused on ideology. They're not trying to come at Trump from the left or from the right. It's from the top and bottom, right? They're talking about corruption.

The way that these two Osloff and Talarico specifically have been able to kind of hone in on the corruption angle in the midst of a conversation about affordability has been fascinating.

“And I think it's going to be the kind of message that we're going to need to run head on with in 2028. I think Osloff's honing it very, very well ahead of a potential 2028 run.”

I would like to see more Democrats start to articulate that message because it does seem like it kind of you can win over a lot of folks who are in the middle. You can win over independent voters who are kind of looking at the corruption and looking at the affordability concerns and saying, "This is a problem happening on both parties. I think Trump is the one causing the pain right now, but I'm willing to support this democratic nominee in a state like Texas because he's clearly laser focused on the things that are driving up my costs and making me angry when I see my elected representatives kind of enriching themselves in their allies at the expense of working families."

It really is interesting what's happening and of course John Osloff has to win first. James Talarico has to win first, but if it happens like it's looking like it might happen, then there will be a ton of stuff to learn about this. So your hack at Osloff and the talk to you that was really fascinating. Thanks, man. Yeah, great to be with you Greg.