Most of the election polling we see these days is done on the national level. Despite his fervent efforts to appear great and strong, Americans give Donald J. Trump abysmal ratings for his Presidential job performance, and they are steadily sinking to new depths. The polling site FiftyPlusOne, which combines many polls, has Trump’s average favorability rating at 36.9 percent, well below the 40 percent threshold when political warning sirens sound.
The Silver Bulletin, another poll aggregator, has Trump’s average approval at 39 percent—a little better, but still terrible. Primarily, Trump’s favorability (or unfavorability, we might say) can be laid to his inability to honor his campaign promise to keep consumer prices low, and to his reckless decision to start the Iran War without a plan to bring it to an end.
Bad polls at the top of a party can often spell trouble for candidates down the line, which could be the case for Republican Juan Ciscomani as he runs for re-election this fall. Of course, each congressional district is different, and assuming national trends apply locally can be a bad bet.
However, a different kind of poll was conducted in late April that doesn’t bode well for the congressman. The Cook Political Report, a non-partisan political newsletter published for 40 years, picked 36 “Battleground” congressional districts which it ranks as either “toss up”, “lean Democrat”, or “lean Republican”—the most competitive ones among the 435, in other words. (Ciscomani’s Sixth District is one of the toss-ups. There are 16 of those; 13 are held by Republicans (a bad sign for the GOP).
Polling in the 36 resulted in what Cook called “a flashing red warning light” for the Republican candidates there. What’s called a “generic ballot” question, which doesn’t refer to candidates or their opponents by name, just asks which party is preferred, showed Democrats with a six-point lead. That doesn’t sound like a lot, but in the history of House of Representatives elections, it is considered a sign of significant gains for the party ahead in the polls.
Digging down into specifics, the Battleground poll responders “blame Trump and Republicans for the high cost of living by a nine-point margin.” When asked if the Republicans failed to deliver on promises of lower costs, 57 percent agreed.
A particularly important part of the poll is the responses of independent voters. They give Trump a 70 percent disapproval rating, and strong negative numbers against Republicans on key issues such as ICE enforcement, the cost of living, and Trump’s handling of the economy. Why is this particularly important for Ciscomani? The voter identification breakdown of those polled included 28 percent independents who, all together, had mostly a vile opinion of Trump and the Republicans. The official Arizona count of registered voters as of April showed 33 percent independents in CD-6.
The veteran election watcher Charlie Cook, the founder of the Cook Political Report, was asked recently by The Atlantic writer Mark Leibovich about the House races: “Cook said that Democrats are likely to have a “good” year in the House elections—“good defined between a dozen and 30 seats,” he explained.” Keep in mind that the Democrats only must gain six to be the majority party.
There is a single poll on the local scene, and it, too, didn’t provide much hope for Ciscomani. The Conservatives for America polled the district in April and found, despite his being a two-term incumbent and Democrat JoAnna Mendoza in her first run for the seat, that she held a 47 to 44 percent lead.
Ciscomani could barely keep his head above the electoral waters in his first two races, winning by 1.5 percent in 2022 and 2.5 in 2024. Donald Trump, and Ciscomani’s straight party-line vote allegiance to him, seem dangerously close to dragging him beneath the waves in 2026.
Sources:
https://fiftyplusone.news/polls/approval/president
https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin
https://apps.azsos.gov/election/VoterReg/2026/State-Voter-Registration-April-2026.pdf
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/05/democrats-midterms-trump-elections/687059
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