September polling has been particularly good for Democrats and especially brutal for Republicans. But in case you have not been paying attention up until this point (and honestly, who can blame you if you haven’t?), September is just another month in a continuing leftward swing nationwide, which is starting to peak at the right moment for Democrats as early voting is now underway in much of the country.
In the 2024 presidential election, the average result across the 50 states was a 6.7-point Republican win margin. Based on the state-by-state calculations, that represented an 11.1-point average shift toward Republicans compared with 2020, when the average state result was a 4.4-point Democratic margin. The 2020 result itself represented a smaller 2.3-point shift compared with 2016.
But if 2024 represented a substantial rightward shift, 2026 is gearing up to represent a large shift to the left.
The interactive map below explains why.
As of September, the congressional generic ballot polling indicates a national environment that is now averaging a 1.9-point Democratic environment across the fifty states. That’s not a popular vote estimate, but the average of each state’s generic ballot. That might not seem like a huge Democratic advantage nationally, but as they say, the devil is in the details.
When looking at the intensity of the Democratic environment, all fifty states have shifted left by an average 8.6-points and a median percentage of 8.1-points, relative to its 2024 presidential win margin.
Of course, there are some states that are going to skew that average. Wyoming, for example, has shifted the least to the left by 3.6-points, still giving it a whopping 42% Republican advantage on the 2026 generic ballot. Rhode Island has shifted the furthest left by 18.3-points, giving Democrats a massive 32% lead on the generic ballot. Neither of these states is going to be competitive for the opposite party, so let’s instead focus on the most competitive states.
The seven swing states of both 2020 and 2024 (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin) collectively have shifted 8-points to the left and have an average 5.4-point Democratic tilt in 2026. All seven states host a competitive race for governor, senate, or house. The states with the most competitive senate races, rated tossup or Lean D/R by Cook Political Report (Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas) have shifted left by an average 8.8-points and have an average 2-point Democratic tilt.
What about just those competitive senate states that were solidly Republican in 2024 with a 13.4-point average win margin for Trump (Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Ohio, and Texas)? An 8.9-point average shift to the left and a 4.5-point Republican tilt on the generic ballot. This demonstrates just how badly the environment has deteriorated for Republicans but also shows just how high of a hurdle Democrats have to overcome to win in these states. However, that eroding environment for Republicans is the reason these states are in the competitive mix now.
The leftward swing has not yet shown any signs of abating.
Roughly six months ago, at the start of April, the state-by-state generic ballot showed a half-point Republican tilt, and a 6.1-point leftward shift relative to 2024. Since then, that pendulum has continued swinging left, becoming 2.4-points more Democratic on the generic ballot. It’s why states like Georgia and North Carolina are starting to look out of reach for Republicans and states like Kansas and Nebraska are becoming more competitive.
It’s why things appear to be peaking for Democrats at just the right moment with just over a month until Election Day. Or, more likely, because things are crumbling at just the wrong moment for the GOP.
The national Democratic Party is not enjoying a popular upswell in support. The party averages just a 38% approval rating, on par with President Trump’s own 37% approval rating. But as I’ve written before (See here: The Midterm Lens), a midterm election is usually a referendum on the party in power, and the pendulum only swings two ways in America. As I wrote last week (See here: The Midterm Curse), every incumbent president uses the same playbook of defend, attack, and promise, but it rarely works out in the end when his party loses seats in congress. As such, despite their own unpopularity, Democrats hold onto an 8.1-point lead on the generic ballot nationally over Republicans.
The factors that are causing this barely need to be explained as most Americans are living it with gasoline prices continually spiking, inflation rising, and the general cost of living up overall. It was these factors that swept Trump back into office. These same factors now imperil the Republican majority.
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