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john-zogby_1_11-06-2026_083026: It's Friday, and it's three days after the main event, the election of 2026, and I'm John Zogby. This is another edition of Real Polling in Real Time with Zogby. Only, there's just me today. Jeremy and his family are on a well-deserved vacation break, and so I've agreed to fill in for about 15 or 20 minutes or so.
Wow, this was an historic election in, in many ways. This was a drubbing for the GOP. There's no other way to look at it except that it was, a total repudiation of Donald Trump, the man, the policies, his actions as commander-in-chief, his behavior and demeanor [00:01:00] in office. In every which way you read the numbers and turn, it, it was bad news for the president and for his party.
And as evidence, we see the blame letting beginning within the White House already. reports are that the closest aides to the president who were with him on election day and election eve pretty much had to rely on gallows humor to get them through the night. The president was described as despondent, and his aides are polishing up their resumes.
it was just a bad day. We still don't know exactly how many seats, but what we are sensing is that the Democrats will end up in the 250s in terms of seats. they had been at 215, so the, the net gain is already [00:02:00] substantial. I don't think anybody expected a seven-point pickup, for the Democrats in the Senate.
I and others have been suggesting that they would take over the Senate and might drop one of the close races or two. So far, not only have they not dropped any of those close races, but they're in real position to pick up, two that haven't been called yet. one of which is Mississippi, where the margin is growing slightly.
It was only 43 in favor of the Democrat, the, margin. and last seen, it was about 1,800, but the race has not been called yet. Understand that those two margins in the House and the Senate are not two-thirds margins or, or 60%, margins. The-- So in fact, for anything to move [00:03:00] forward that is veto-proof, it's still going to require some support, from the opposing side.
That we'll take a look at, towards the end of, this broadcast. What I wanted to do was I wanted to share with you, some numbers from the exit polls, and that's the real polling in real time. Some of this, was a little bit of a surprise, and some of it was right on the mark. So first and foremost, this is an exit poll...
Well- Traditionally, that's what we called it. But only some of the people that were of the 70, of the 79,000 that were polled, only a smaller portion were those captured exiting the actual polling day. The rest were reached by, telephone and email, and included the substantial number of people that had already polled, and, taken advantage of early [00:04:00] voting.
So of that substantial number of people who had already voted, what we discovered was that the top three issues, not surprisingly by far and away, w- was affordability. and what folks were reflecting in that affordability issue was not just, complaints about the cost of living, the cost of food, the cost of fuel, but as I've said on many occasions before, they were worried about status anxiety, about losing their status as middle class, about being one, two, and three paychecks from poverty and from, debt, perhaps bankruptcy.
And so this was by far the number one issue. But the number two issue that kinda snuck up there later was corruption And corruption really [00:05:00] in, two distinct aspects, although they do intersect. The first is the corruption within the Trump administration and the sense that the president, whenever there was a deal or an action, he, members of his family, close friends, donors, were in a position announced by the White House itself of having someone benefit financially from the deal.
That in many ways putting the personal interests of friends and family, in first place and deals for the security and the wellbeing of, the country in second place. Corruption also had a- another, side to it, in fact, somewhat related, and that was the power of Silicon Valley and the power of large corporations.
Voters expressed this, [00:06:00] that there are large entities out there that are not playing by the same rules that the rest of us are forced to play with. We saw this particularly with Silicon Valley, with, artificial intelligence, and then ultimately with this, phenomenon of data centers that is spreading like wildfire throughout the country.
in many ways above and beyond the election itself were, for Congress this time, voters made a choice in some states to postpone or even stop, data centers, and that was seen as a strike against Silicon Valley billionaires. The third issue, and not surprisingly, was the war. the war with Iran and the, dual sense that here is a president who went to war [00:07:00] at a point, as we've talked before on, on this podcast, when the American people were not supporting it, and that as each day dragged on, Americans were supporting it even less.
Add to that the fact that it's had its impact, both on the US economy, on the wellbeing of consumers, and for that matter, then America's geopolitical positioning and strength in the very vital Middle East region. This is what voters were voting about, and this is where the rejectionism of the Republican Party and, of, the president, is, so powerful.
Let's take a look at how people actually voted. So the gender gap is back although, Democrats in the total popular vote for the House of Representatives supported, [00:08:00] men supported, the Democrats by a factor of 50 to 48. Now, that's not much of a margin, but it is a margin, and generally speaking, Republicans can count on men to give them the edge.
But when we get to women, 59% of women, voted for Democrats and only 40% for Republicans, making that a very substantial gender gap. a lot was discussed after 2024 that, Donald Trump had made, political inroads into Blacks, especially younger Blacks and, Hispanics and, and younger voters in general.
Let's look at how things went. Among Blacks, Democrats won 90% of the vote to nine for Republicans. That is substantial, [00:09:00] and frankly, that's where the normal, breakdown has been and should be in, typical elections. Among whites, Democrats won also 49 to 46. Seldom do- does a Democrat or Democrats in general win the white vote.
Among Latinos, we had seen a tightening up back in 2024 and some real, inroads that the GOP and Donald Trump had made among Latinos. But this time around, business as usual, 64% of Latino voters voted for a Democratic candidate as opposed to, merely, 20% this time. What about Millennials, Gen Z?
We bunched together from the exit polls 18 to 44-year-olds. That accounts for both groups who were about [00:10:00] 32%, 33% of the actual total of voters. 66% of 18 to 44-year-olds voted for the Democrat. Only 32 voted for the Republican. That was a, a huge, factor for momentum, especially since we saw that the turnout had been high among younger voters.
But among voters 45 and older, Democrats still had a slight edge, 51 to 48 Catholic voters, or I'm sorry, voters with some college, degree or more. 63% of college-educated voters voted Democrat, 35% Republican. And among those with no college education, 48% [00:11:00] Democrat, 50% Republican. both parties did what they had to do to rally their own voters.
Those identified as Democrats, 98% voted Democrat. Those who identified as a Republican, 92% voted Republican. But as always, and as Jeremy likes to talk about a lot, independents gave the distinct edge to the Democratic candidates. 58%, 58% of independents ended up voting for the Democrat, and 32% for the Republican A lot of numbers there.
But, one of the dramas that played out through much of, 2026, even going back to [00:12:00] 2025, was when the Republicans felt that they were in a very strong position to win this election. You will recall that in a number of states, notably, Texas and, Missouri, just to name a two, to name two, there were efforts to, reapportion districts, take away minority, based districts and, dissipate, dilute those, and then to create a- all new districts which would turn out to be, more white districts than had existed before and therefore favor Republicans.
The-- This was atypical because reapportionment, gerrymandering normally takes place every 10 years after a census, but there was nothing in the Constitution barring, Congress from [00:13:00] generating reapportionment, through the state legislatures, in, in mid-session. Thus far, it's been reported that of all of those districts that were gerrymandered, apparently in Republicans' favor, that as of this moment, and I'll have to get an update on it, Republicans have either lost or are in the process of losing every single one Of those reapportioned districts.
So here was a strategy that backfired. So frankly, where do we go from here? That's an important question. President took a drubbing. He gave mixed signals on election night. Initially, publicly, he said, oh, he'll work with Democrats, so long as they don't, offer him legislation that he [00:14:00] simply can't sign, but that he will reach out and he'll have his people reach out.
And then literally within moments, he was flashing a red baseball cap that had four letters on it, veto, and, a clear signal there that the president is going to block d- Democratic, attempts at legislation. He also said something very strange. he said, had he been on the ballot, he would've won those districts, and he blamed the losses on poor candidates.
Now, this is a bit disingenuous. Some of them were poor candidates. Let's say it right out loud. Ken Paxton in Texas was a, a dismal candidate, and for very different reasons, the sister of Lindsey Graham, who had been appointed to take that seat, was recruited to run [00:15:00] for, US Senate in South Carolina and, was, an in- ill-informed candidate.
But the fact of the matter is that Donald Trump was on the ballot, and that's what a lot of people were voting for, and that's what they told us pre-election and, the, el- election, the exit polls that, this was a repudiation of Donald Trump. So what will we see? it's already been announced by the appropriate chairman that there will be investigations.
Investigations of Donald Trump's, and his administration's, personal, dealings and finances. investigations of, rampant spending, particularly, on remodeling the White House. There'll be investigations of the family, and, it will be [00:16:00] unpleasant. Impeachment apparently is off the table, and I think that's very wise.
I think that'd be a distraction Democrats now have a burden. They have pretty substantial, though not full control of both houses, and voters are going to expect them in short order to do something. No dithering and no excuses, and, anything they pass is going to be pr- be problematic because it'll go to the White House for vetoing unless the president has a come to Jesus moment or the Republicans decide, "Hey, look, we're gonna be up for re-election in two more years and we better put points on the table and show that, that we've got- gotten something done."
But expect Democrats to put points on the board by [00:17:00] trying to pass legislation to deal with affordability and with healthcare, and with data centers and things that really matter to, to people. And then the burden's gonna have to be on the Republicans to either show that they're ready to legislate and that they both can have a legacy of getting something done, or for them to take a hard line, in which case that would produce s- stasis, which is public enemy number one for American voters.
They want something done and they want something meaningful, and they want it done right away. And I think that's the end of my piece for today. Have a good week. Jeremy will be back the next time
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