Steve Kornacki just laid out the numbers that upend the usual midterm narrative. In the latest NBC News Decision Desk poll from October 28-30, Republicans hold a clear edge in party favorability: 38 percent favorable versus 50 percent unfavorable. Democrats sit at a dismal 29 percent favorable and 52 percent unfavorable. That gap is not a rounding error. It is a nine-point favorability advantage for the GOP that did not exist in 2018.
Back then, Democrats rode higher ratings into a wave election. Their brand was stronger, and voters treated the midterms as a referendum on the party in power with a clear preference for the alternative. This time the numbers have flipped. Republicans are not popular, but their image is roughly where it stood in 2018. Democrats have cratered. The same poll shows both parties underwater overall, yet the Democratic brand is the one that has deteriorated sharply since the last midterm cycle under Trump.
That matters for turnout and persuasion. When a party’s own voters and leaners sour on the label, low-propensity groups stay home. Early returns and commentary around key races already point to softer Democratic enthusiasm after the first wave of voting. Independents and soft partisans who might have defaulted to Democrats in 2018 now see a party with worse numbers than the one they are being asked to reject. The generic ballot can still favor Democrats on paper, but favorability is the deeper signal of whether voters actually want to show up for them.
The contrast with 2018 is the real takeaway Kornacki highlighted. Then, Democrats were the more popular brand heading into election day. Now they are not. Republicans enter the final stretch with the less damaged image, and that is the kind of structural shift that has quietly decided more midterms than the headline horse-race numbers suggest.
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