Final NBC Poll: Voters Prefer a Democratic Congress 52% to 45%, and the President's Approval Stands at 40% Two Days Before the Midterms
The last NBC News poll before Tuesday gives Democrats a seven-point edge on which party should control Congress, finds the president's disapproval at 60% - a high across his two terms in that poll - and records the first majority dissatisfaction with personal finances in the poll's history since 2007.
The final national reading before Election Day favors the opposition. In the last NBC News poll ahead of Tuesday's midterms, 52% of voters said they want a Democratic-controlled Congress and 45% a Republican-controlled one, the Washington Examiner reported in a file opened and read directly by the desk this run. The Democratic margin grew two points from NBC's early-September poll, when the split was 50% to 45%.
The president's numbers sit underneath that preference. President Donald Trump's approval rating stands at 40% in the poll, six points below the 46% he carried into the 2018 midterms, and his disapproval rating is 60%. NBC's Steve Kornacki compared the congressional numbers with the final NBC poll before 2018, when voters preferred Democratic control 49% to 43% - a year Democrats flipped the House while Republicans grew their Senate majority, a split outcome the poll's defenders and critics both remember.
The economy is where the ground has moved most. In 2018 the economy was the president's strong suit, with 68% of voters satisfied with its state and 29% dissatisfied; in this final 2026 poll those numbers are nearly flipped - 26% satisfied and 73% dissatisfied. And for the first time in the poll's history since 2007, more voters said they are dissatisfied with their own personal financial situation (51%) than satisfied (49%). Affordability has been the word of the 2026 campaign, the Examiner noted, with Democrats tying fuel prices to the Iran war and Republicans pointing to the tax breaks in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
The poll was conducted Oct. 28 to Oct. 30 and carries a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points; it measures preference, not seats. What it cannot say is how Tuesday breaks in the districts and states that actually decide control - 35 Senate seats and all 435 House seats, with Republicans holding a 53-47 Senate majority and a narrow House edge. Jacksonville's own bellwether, Duval County, votes Tuesday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m.
