Now that the new year has come and gone, political observers throughout the state are beginning to focus on the 2026 midterm elections — not just for Congress and the State Legislature, but also down ballot for local races as well.
This naturally raises the question: what does the political environment in California look like today, and what might it look like by the time voters cast their ballots next November?
The latter question can be impossible to predict with certainty, but polling data can offer useful insight into how voters currently feel — and, in past elections, those sentiments have often carried through to Election Day. This analysis leans heavily on polling conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC), a nonpartisan research institute known for its rigorous methodology and long track record of credible statewide surveys.
To put current conditions in context, much of this analysis compares today’s polling to results from right before the 2018 mid-term election. That election offers a useful benchmark: it was the last midterm held under a Trump presidency and, in California, produced a clear Democratic wave driven by shifts among independents, moderates, and suburban voters. For current conditions, we rely on PPIC’s December 2025 statewide poll.
While voter opinion may change between now and November, this data provides a snapshot of how Californians currently view the political environment — and how similar conditions have translated into electoral outcomes in the recent past. As always, the environment could move in either direction as the election approaches. In addition, this is an environmental evaluation -- candidate quality, local issues, and other dynamics always play a role as well.
Looking at the Generic Congressional Ballot
To understand the 2026 midterm environment, it helps to start with the most basic measure: the generic congressional ballot.
The generic congressional ballot asks voters which party they would support if the election for the U.S. House of Representatives were held today, without naming specific candidates. While it does not predict individual races, it is widely used as a high-level gauge of the national and statewide political environment, capturing which party currently holds an advantage among voters.
By some measures, the current environment is even more challenging for Republicans than it was at a comparable point in 2018. Democrats not only hold a larger generic ballot advantage, but far fewer voters remain undecided. And unlike 2018, when these numbers emerged late in the cycle, today’s figures come nearly a year before the election — suggesting a deeper underlying tilt in the electorate.
Statewide toplines describe the overall shape of the political environment, but they do not explain how different groups are responding at a given moment. Comparing subgroup results from late 2018 and late 2025 helps clarify how today’s generic ballot environment differs from the one that preceded the 2018 midterms.
Among independent voters, the 2025 results show a clearer partisan preference than was present in 2018. In the earlier survey, independents leaned Democratic but with a sizable share undecided. In December 2025, a larger share indicate support for the Democratic candidate, while Republican support is similar and fewer voters report being undecided. The contrast between these two snapshots helps explain the larger statewide gap.
A comparable contrast appears among ideological moderates. Relative to 2018, the 2025 survey shows moderates expressing higher Democratic support and lower Republican support, with less uncertainty overall. Because moderates tend to participate at higher rates and are common in competitive districts, differences in how this group responds across surveys are especially relevant to the statewide picture.
Geographic comparisons point in the same direction. In Orange County and San Diego, Democratic support on the generic ballot is higher in the 2025 survey than in the October 2018 survey, while Republican support is lower. These regions were central to the 2018 House outcomes, making the comparison between the two points in time particularly salient.
Taken together, these side-by-side comparisons show that the current generic ballot advantage is not confined to a single group or region. Rather, across multiple snapshots — by voter type and by geography — the 2025 results resemble, and in some cases exceed, the Democratic advantages observed ahead of the 2018 midterms.
Trump's Approval Rating
The generic ballot offers a snapshot of partisan balance, but it does not exist in isolation. Another way to understand the broader political environment is to look at how voters in California are evaluating national leadership — particularly during periods when Donald Trump has been the dominant figure in national politics.
It’s no secret that Trump has never really been popular in California. The highest his approval rating ever got was in the fall of 2018 (interestingly, right before the 2018 mid-terms) when it peaked at just 39%.
As of December of 2025, that number is down to just 29%, with disapproval at 71%, leaving basically no voters undecided on how they feel about the President. In other words, as toxic as Trump was right before the 2018 mid-terms, it appears he is on even worse footing among California voters today.
Here is how these numbers look when comparing 2018 against today:
The most pronounced change appears among independents. In October 2018, independents approved of Donald Trump at 44 percent. By December 2025, that figure falls to 22 percent. This represents more than gradual erosion; it reflects the disappearance of what had once been Trump’s weakest but still electorally meaningful constituency in California. Independents now evaluate him far closer to Democrats than to Republicans, helping explain the size of the current generic ballot gap.
A similar hardening is visible among the ideological middle. Moderates move from 31 percent approval in October 2018 to 18 percent in 2025. While liberals were already overwhelmingly opposed in 2018, moderates had previously provided Trump with a nontrivial base of support. That floor is no longer present. Conservatives, by contrast, remain overwhelmingly supportive, with approval holding essentially steady between the two periods. The result is not persuasion, but polarization: a coalition that is narrower and more ideologically concentrated than it was heading into the last midterm.
Geographically, the pattern is uneven. The San Francisco Bay Area was already hostile in October 2018, with approval at 27 percent, and moves further into opposition by 2025. More notable is Southern California outside Los Angeles. In Orange County and San Diego, Trump’s approval drops from 44 percent in 2018 to 26 percent in 2025. Los Angeles itself also moves modestly leftward over this period, but the larger movement in Orange County and San Diego is more consequential.
The Enthusiasm Gap
Beyond vote preference and approval ratings, PPIC’s December 2025 survey also sheds light on how motivated different voters feel about participating in the upcoming midterm elections. Rather than measuring absolute enthusiasm, the question asks whether voters feel more or less enthusiastic than usual about voting — a useful indicator of the participation environment parties may be facing.
Here, the partisan contrast is clear. Democratic voters are far more likely to report heightened enthusiasm about voting, while Republican voters are more likely to say they are less motivated than usual. Independents fall between the two, but their responses tilt closer to the Republican side of the spectrum than the Democratic one.
This imbalance matters because midterm elections are often shaped less by persuasion than by participation. When one party’s voters are more motivated to turn out and the other’s are less so, turnout gaps tend to widen rather than narrow. In that kind of environment, existing advantages are more likely to be reinforced than erased.
Seen alongside the generic ballot and approval data, the enthusiasm results complete the picture. Democrats are not only expressing a preference advantage, they are also more inclined to act on it. Republicans, by contrast, are entering the cycle with weaker approval ratings and a less engaged base — a combination that makes it harder to convert any favorable conditions into electoral gains.
Why This Environment Matters
Taken together, the generic ballot, presidential approval, and enthusiasm data point to an environment that is not merely favorable to Democrats, but structurally difficult for Republicans to navigate. Relative to 2018, today’s polling shows a larger partisan preference gap, deeper opposition to the Republican standard-bearer, and weaker engagement among Republican voters — particularly among independents, moderates, and suburban Californians.
What distinguishes the current environment from a typical partisan lean is how these indicators reinforce one another. The generic ballot advantage is not driven by transient undecided voters who could still swing back; it is paired with unusually low uncertainty and clearer partisan alignment. At the same time, Donald Trump’s approval in California is lower than it was even in the closing weeks of the 2018 midterms, with especially sharp declines among groups that once provided him with a limited but meaningful floor of support. Finally, the enthusiasm data suggests that these preferences are not sitting idle: Democratic voters report elevated motivation to participate, while Republicans report diminished enthusiasm relative to their norm.
That combination matters because midterm elections are often decided less by persuasion than by participation and coalition efficiency. When voters who already lean toward one party are also more motivated to turn out, the environment tends to amplify existing advantages rather than narrow them. Conversely, when the out-party’s voters are both less popular in aggregate and less enthusiastic about voting, even favorable local conditions can be difficult to translate into wins.
In California, these dynamics have implications beyond the top of the ballot. Legislative, local, and even nonpartisan races are frequently decided by modest margins and relatively small electorates. In those contexts, shifts in who shows up can be just as consequential as shifts in ideology or issue positioning. An environment that mobilizes Democratic-leaning voters while dampening Republican participation creates headwinds for Republican-aligned candidates and causes, even in contests where party labels are absent.
None of this guarantees a repeat of 2018, and political environments can change over the course of a year. But based on current polling, the conditions facing Republicans in California appear, in several respects, more adverse than those that preceded the last major Democratic wave. For campaigns operating at every level of the ballot, that distinction — between a merely competitive environment and a structurally unfavorable one — is likely to shape strategic decisions as the 2026 cycle unfolds.