A wave of new polls shows Republicans trailing in must-win Senate races across Ohio, Texas, and Iowa — dropped just as early voting gets underway and six days before President Trump returns to Ohio to rally the base.
The Cook Political Report moved three Republican-held Senate seats toward Democrats on Wednesday: Texas, where James Talarico leads Ken Paxton by 5 points; Iowa, where Josh Turek leads Ashley Hinson by 2; and Ohio, where Sherrod Brown leads Jon Husted by 6. A separate Fox News survey of 2,005 Ohio registered voters puts Brown up 52-47 over Husted. The timing is the story. These numbers hit the wire while ballots are already being cast. Fox News found that among the 15% of Ohioans who say they've already voted, Brown leads by 29 points. Columbia professor Robert Y. Shapiro told Newsweek that if the Democratic "turnout edge in early voting continues...they would likely have a very good day." The polls aren't just measuring the race — they're part of the information environment shaping who shows up.
Newsweek framed the Cook report as a "triple polling blow" to Republicans. Fox News buried the early-voter skew deep in its crosstabs. Neither outlet dwelled on the track record of midterm polling in the Trump era, or on who funds the outfits commissioning these surveys.
The Fox poll does show real warning signs. Husted sits 13 points underwater on favorability (42% favorable, 55% unfavorable), while Brown is 2 points above water. Trump's approval in Ohio has dropped to 43%, with 57% disapproving — in a state he carried by 11 points in 2024. Nearly half of voters (46%) say their financial situation is worse than two years ago, and those voters break for Brown by 49 points. GOP pollster Greg Strimple told Cook: "The economic center of the American electorate is collapsing on Republicans."
But there's a counter-narrative in the data. Voters who view both candidates unfavorably prefer Husted by nearly 20 points, according to Fox. And while 9% of Republicans cross over to Brown, just 2% of Democrats back Husted — a gap that could narrow as Election Day approaches. Syracuse professor Grant Davis Reeher cautioned that the polls are "the best snapshot that we have, but there are still a lot of known unknowns," including whether frustrated Republicans and independents will "come home" before November 3.
Trump is heading to Chillicothe on October 28 for his third Ohio rally, betting his ground game can override the polling narrative. Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics told cleveland.com that the Republican voters who need to show up "don't really think of themselves as MAGA republicans," raising the question of whether presidential rallies are reaching the right audience.
The same class of forecasters that projected Hillary Clinton's inevitability is now projecting Republican losses right as ballots are being cast. Maybe the affordability anger is real and the numbers are right. Maybe this is the same playbook: drop the spreadsheet, dampen the turnout, count the votes later.
