ANALYSIS — Republicans are riding high after a series of redistricting victories that could help the GOP become the first party since 1978 to retain control of both chambers of Congress in a midterm election while holding the White House. 

But two batches of Republican surveys show how such an outcome would still be tough to pull off, particularly in the House, and they provide some key lessons about polling along the way.

In late April, Punchbowl News reported on a batch of surveys from nine House districts conducted in mid-March by Ragnar Research Partners for Conservatives for America, which is connected to the Republican Study Committee in the House. 

On a superficial level, the results might have looked like good news, considering GOP incumbents led in all but one of the polls. But a closer look showed warning signs for Republican chances of maintaining control of the House. 

Only one of those districts is at or near the center of the House battleground. GOP Rep. Juan Ciscomani’s reelection race in Arizona’s 6th District is rated a Toss-up by Inside Elections, while three are rated as Lean Republican (Iowa’s 3rd, Michigan’s 4th and Virginia’s 1st), two are rated Likely Republican (Colorado’s 3rd and North Carolina’s 14th) and three are rated Solid Republican (Minnesota’s 1st, North Carolina’s 10th and Wisconsin’s 1st). 

Republican incumbents led in all but one race by an average of almost 8 points (Ciscomani trailed by 3 points) and President Donald Trump’s average job approval rating was 48 percent across all nine districts. But that was just two weeks into the war with Iran, at a time when Trump’s approval rating was at 41 percent nationally, according to Nate Silver’s average, and the national average gas price was $1 less than it is today.

In the two months since, Trump’s national approval rating has slumped to 38 percent, and it could drop even further. So it’s also not unreasonable to believe the nine House races have creeped closer since March. If Democrats are seriously challenging even half of those districts in the fall, they will likely have won the majority. Only Arizona’s 6th would be on a list of must-win races for Democrats to gain the three seats they need nationally to flip the House.

The CFA surveys, while clearly not intended for public consumption (considering the host page was taken down within a few hours of the Punchbowl News story), offered a rare glimpse into the value of internal polling. The 17-page memos and slide decks with at least 20 slides each included detailed demographic data on a wide variety of candidates, contained information on specific policy questions, offered data-driven message advice and, perhaps most importantly, included information even when it wasn’t favorable to Republicans. 

Internal polls are most often used to make millions of dollars in strategic spending decisions, so good data is key. One veteran pollster estimated each of these surveys cost at least $30,000.

A more recent batch of GOP polls took a different approach. 

The National Republican Congressional Committee recently released a handful of surveys that showed GOP candidates running strong in key takeover opportunities, including Maine’s 2nd District, Washington’s 3rd, Texas’ 34th, New Mexico’s 2nd and North Carolina’s 1st. 

The one-page memos were notable for their brevity and for what information was missing. While the releases included head-to-head ballot tests, generic ballots and image ratings for the Democratic candidates and the Democratic Party, it did not include image ratings of the Republican candidates (with one exception) or Trump’s job approval rating. The logical conclusion is that that data wasn’t good enough to fit the preferred narrative.

But the memos also included answers to a question that could be a window into future GOP messaging. According to the NRCC polls, voters preferred a candidate who would pass the Trump agenda rather than someone who would pass President Joe Biden’s agenda.

Assuming that Biden will still be relevant two years after leaving office is a gamble and potentially unprecedented. Our elections are generally a referendum on the status quo and the party in power. In this case, it would be up to Republicans to shift voters’ attention and change that dynamic. 

In 2008, Democrats continued to run against an unpopular President George W. Bush, even though he wasn’t on the ballot. But he was still in office. In 1998, Democrats bucked the typical midterm trend (in which the president’s party almost always loses House seats) when focus shifted from President Bill Clinton to House Republicans. But Republicans were in the House majority then, unlike Democrats now.

What Republicans want is for Biden to become America’s Sam Brownback. Brownback was a former senator from Kansas who was elected governor in 2010, but his tenure was so polarizing and unpopular that Democrats just kept running against him. They successfully tied him to 2020 and 2022 3rd District nominee Amanda Atkins, and Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly ran against Brownback in her 2022 reelection even though he wasn’t in office anymore. But that situation looks like an aberration.

It’s possible for Republicans to buck those historic midterm trends, particularly with advantages gained through mid-decade redistricting, but it’s still the less likely scenario. Democrats held the House in 1978, but they still lost 15 seats. And that was when Jimmy Carter’s job approval rating was at 49 percent, with 36 percent disapproving, according to Gallup. That was an improvement from early May when Carter was closer to 1:1 (41 percent approve/43 percent disapprove). But that’s a far cry from Trump being underwater by 20 points now, with no sign of improvement yet.

Redistricting has given Republicans a better chance of holding the House majority, but both private and public GOP polling shows that the overall environment is still tough.