Last Friday, PRRI launched a new project, Data and the 2026 Midterms, connecting the treasure trove of demographic, political and public opinion data in the PRRI American Values Atlas to the key races that could determine which party controls one or both houses of Congress.
One advantage of the AVA is its large sample size, which allows us to dig deep into individual states — including five with highly competitive Senate races: Georgia, North Carolina, Texas, Ohio and Michigan. (Other closely watched contests, in states such as Maine, Iowa and Alaska, have too few cases for this granular level of analysis but can be explored on our interactive AVA microsite.)
Here are my main takeaways from our deep dive into these five critical states:
Trump’s dismal ratings will be a drag on Republican Senate candidates.
Democrats’ chief advantage in these five battlegrounds is the unpopularity of Donald Trump. Nationally, our 2025 American Values Atlas data show just 37% of Americans hold favorable views of him, which dropped even further to 34% in May 2026.
In Georgia, North Carolina and Ohio, his numbers sit near that national average — although in Ohio, they slid from 45% in late 2025 to 38% in April. In Michigan (31%) and Texas (27%), favorable views of Trump have collapsed by double digits since 2025.
That last point bears repeating: Currently, just one in four Texans view Trump favorably.
Moreover, independents in each of these states hold favorability views of Trump well below the national average.
In our most recent PRRI survey, we examined Trump’s favorability among Americans writ large by a 7-point party identification scale between 2024 and 2026 and found the sharpest decreases among independents and Republican-leaning voters. Republican leaners fell 17 points, from 65% to 48%, while true independents — those who don’t lean toward either party — dropped 21 points, from 35% to 14%. Given the critical role independent voters will play in these close contests, these trends bear watching as we head into November.
The Democratic brand is in real trouble in these states
At the same time, Republican candidates may benefit from the deep unpopularity of the Democratic Party. During the last midterm elections, Democrats outnumbered Republicans in all five battleground states; today, that pattern is reversed. In some states, GOP gains in party identification were fairly modest, but in Ohio the percentage of Republicans jumped 10 points, from 29% to 39%.
Of course, relatively few Americans view either party warmly. Our 2025 American Values Survey found 39% of Americans hold favorable views of the Republican Party, compared with 35% for the Democratic Party. Partisans largely rate their own parties favorably, but just three in 10 independents say the same of either party.
One notable trend, both nationally and in these five battlegrounds, is that survey respondents are increasingly opting out of party labels altogether. The share of independents in each of these states has not appreciably grown since the last midterm; instead, we are seeing a rise in Americans — including residents of these states — who identify as “other” or “don’t know.”
This trend is particularly acute among members of Generation Z, who increasingly lack confidence in a wide array of political institutions. It’s hard to predict in which direction such voters will go this fall — or if they turn out to vote at all.
The religious makeup of each state may be a decisive factor
In Georgia and North Carolina, white evangelical Protestants — the GOP’s key voting constituency — are overrepresented compared with the national average, and the share of residents who qualify as Christian nationalists runs slightly higher as well. At the same time, both states have twice the national proportion of Black Protestants, whose turnout will be critical to Democrats’ success this fall.
Michigan and Ohio present a different religious landscape, with higher proportions of white Catholics and white Mainline Protestants — voters who swung to Trump in 2024 but whose views have since soured. Our most recent American Values Survey finds fewer than half of either group nationally now holds favorable views of Trump. Christian nationalist identification in both states hovers near the national average.
Texas stands apart religiously. While Christian nationalism supporters are overrepresented there, the share of white evangelicals mirrors the national average. What distinguishes the state is its Latino Christian population. Nearly one in five Texans (18%) are Hispanic Catholics and 11% are Hispanic Protestants — more than double the national figures of 8% and 4%, respectively.
Hispanic voters may be Paxton’s undoing in Texas
The Senate race in Texas is surprisingly close, in no small part because of the state’s outsized Hispanic electorate. Trump made serious inroads with these voters in 2024: Pew’s validated voter data show he nearly drew even with Harris, losing 48% to 51% — a massive improvement over 2020, when he secured just 36% of the Hispanic vote. PRRI’s 2024 post-election survey shows Trump performed particularly well among Hispanic Protestants (64%) compared with Hispanic Catholics (43%).
Since then, however, Trump’s standing among Hispanic Americans has cratered. Our latest data show just 37% of Hispanic Protestants and 23% of Hispanic Catholics now view him favorably.
This decline is linked, no doubt, to Trump’s harsh immigration tactics. Few Americans rate his handling of immigration favorably, but the numbers among Hispanics are especially low — just 28% of Hispanic Protestants and 17% of Hispanic Catholics — which should come as no surprise, given that aggressive enforcement hits their communities most directly.
In Texas, Texas Attorney General and GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton has been among the nation’s most aggressive supporters of Trump’s immigration crackdown, deputizing his own office to detain immigrants for deportation, suing repeatedly to end federal protections for immigrants, and characterizing illegal immigration as an invasion. These past positions put him in serious trouble with Texas’ large proportion of Latino voters.
Don’t sleep on the role of abortion in this year’s midterms.
A solid majority of Americans (61%) say abortion should be legal in all or most cases, and residents of all five Senate battlegrounds agree, with support ranging from 55% in Texas to 64% in North Carolina. State law, however, varies dramatically in those states. Michigan is the only one of the five with broad protections, although Ohio voters have enshrined abortion rights up to 21 weeks and six days of gestation. North Carolina permits abortion only through 12 weeks, while Georgia and Texas maintain some of the most restrictive laws in the country.
Republican Senate candidates in all five battlegrounds hold far more restrictive views, with most supporting bans on abortion in all cases except to save the life of the mother. Indeed, Trump nearly withheld his endorsement of Rep. Mike Collins in Georgia over Collins’ past positions on abortion, which the congressman has softened since entering the race. Paxton, too, is staunchly opposed to abortion — a stance many analysts believe leaves him vulnerable in a tight contest against Democrat James Talarico.
Yet PRRI’s AVA shows very few voters in any of these pivotal states support the kinds of bans these GOP Senate candidates have championed in the past.
Melissa Deckman
Melissa Deckman serves as CEO of Public Religion Research Institute and is author of The Politics of Gen Z.
This column originally appeared on her Substack and is republished here with permission. Subscribe to her original columns there as well.
