{"id":368398,"date":"2026-10-09T00:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-09T00:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/368398\/"},"modified":"2026-10-09T00:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-09T00:36:10","slug":"midterm-elections-updates-senate-debates-in-georgia-and-maine-carry-high-stakes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/368398\/","title":{"rendered":"Midterm Elections Updates: Senate Debates in Georgia and Maine Carry High Stakes"},"content":{"rendered":"

If Democrats make big gains in the midterm elections in four weeks, it may not only be because their most loyal voters come out in force, or because their candidates have converted Republican voters to their cause.<\/p>\n

Instead, the Democrats\u2019 dream blue wave could come from Republicans who sour on President Trump and stay home. It already has a name: the red undertow.<\/p>\n

Across the country, signs are emerging of an enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans, even among those who consider themselves likely to vote. A stretch of rural southwest Michigan \u2014 long a Republican stronghold \u2014 illustrates the point, with more signs for blueberries and eggs than for political candidates. Volunteers are not showing up to door-knock. And many voters say they are tuning this election out.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are just more focused on everyday life,\u201d said Lindsay Kronemeyer, 35, a conservative Christian mother of two who works in the construction industry. \u201cI don\u2019t hear the chatter on the Republican side of \u2018Trump this, Trump that.\u2019 He\u2019s just not there in my head anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jim Pasek, a retired pharmaceutical plant maintenance worker who lives in the tiny town of Gobles, Mich., was baffled by a president he has voted for twice.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s not making sense,\u201d Mr. Pasek, 80, said. \u201cIt confuses me, and then I just get disgusted and tune out.\u201d<\/p>\n

The idea of the red undertow was introduced last month<\/a> by the political analyst Charlie Cook, who argued that the Democratic brand was still underwater, but that this election was not about a rising Democratic tide. It was about a drowning Trump brand.<\/p>\n

In its wake, Mr. Cook wrote, an undertow will \u201cpull many Republicans under.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are just more focused on everyday life,\u201d said Lindsay Kronemeyer, a conservative Christian mother of two who works in the construction industry.<\/p>\n

In nearly three dozen interviews in Western Michigan, a sense of fatigue was constant, and that feeling goes beyond that region.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Trump has been saying, \u2018Vote as if I was on the ballot,\u2019 and that\u2019s exactly what I\u2019m going to do \u2014 not vote,\u201d said Brandon Tremaine, 24, a graduate student in Texas who voted for Mr. Trump in 2020. \u201cYou do not campaign on being the ticket of peace and start a war of choice that is directly hurting Americans here at home and gotten Americans killed overseas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Polls can be unreliable, and moods may be fleeting. Trump loyalists are also known for not taking the calls of polling outfits, and that may be overstating Democratic strengths. Disaffected Trump voters may yet rally to vote as the possibility of a Democratic victory nears, and many Americans still love Mr. Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ll go the length with Trump,\u201d said Jeff Gilbert, 67, a friend of Mr. Pasek in Gobles.<\/p>\n

The numbers aren\u2019t drastically far apart. A New York Times\/Siena University national poll from last month found that Democrats were more likely to say they were absolutely certain to vote than Republicans, 61 percent to 56 percent. While Democrats led Republicans nationally by seven percentage points among registered voters, that advantage rose to nine points among likely voters.<\/p>\n

But in close races, a small gap could prove meaningful.<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople are tired,\u201d Al Pscholka, a Republican and a former member of the Michigan House of Representatives, said of Mr. Trump. \u201cThe whole divider-in-chief thing, it\u2019s gotten to the point where it\u2019s just exhausting.\u201d<\/p>\n

The concern is showing in unlikely places. Representative Bill Huizenga, a Western Michigan Republican whose four House victories<\/a> were all by comfortable margins, is in \u201cthe fight of his life\u201d against a well-funded centrist Democrat from Kalamazoo named Sean McCann, said Rob Pocock, a retired Republican political consultant who has worked on campaigns in the region.<\/p>\n

Nancy DeBoer, the local Republican state representative, also faces a serious fight against Joseph McClusky, a graduate of Hope College, a conservative Christian liberal arts college in Holland, Mich., who is openly gay. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would be shocked if Joseph wins, but I can\u2019t believe he\u2019s done as well as he has,\u201d said Mr. Pocock, who teaches at Hope and had Mr. McClusky as a student. He said in Ottawa County, he was seeing Democratic yard signs in numbers he\u2019d never seen before.<\/p>\n

In rural reaches of Western Michigan, like Van Buren County, signs of an election are scarce.<\/p>\n

Western Michigan \u2014 home of Gerald Ford \u2014 may be seeing the ebb tide of the president\u2019s MAGA movement, which had surged in this region, once known for a sober, Christian-inflected conservatism. In Ottawa County, ardent Trump supporters secured 8 of the 11 seats on the county commission after Covid. Pro-Trump forces won control of the state party, too.<\/p>\n

Today, the MAGA wing is down to three seats in Ottawa County. They have also lost posts in Berrien and Kent counties.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think there\u2019s a shift in the party back toward, we need a little bit of the establishment folks,\u201d Ms. Kronemeyer said. \u201cThey exist for a reason.\u201d<\/p>\n

If anybody should be enthusiastic about the election, it is Ms. Kronemeyer. She ran for a statehouse seat in 2022. She door-knocked for Mr. Trump in 2016 and 2020. But she said that when a friend asked her recently about the races in her area, she had to admit she hadn\u2019t been following them closely. She lives in deep-red Allegan County, where \u201ctraditionally in election years, yard signs would be peppered everywhere,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

But the only signs she\u2019d seen this year were for a judge, she said.<\/p>\n

Ten years have passed since Mr. Trump took the country by storm, bringing a message of economic populism that appealed to millions of working-class Americans.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s losing touch with the American people,\u201d James Pasek, left, said of President Trump. His friend Jeff Gilbert, right, said he still stood by the president.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was a ball of energy,\u201d Mr. Pasek said, sitting at breakfast in Gobles last week with his friend, Mr. Gilbert. \u201cYou could feel it. You could see it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now, Mr. Pasek said, Mr. Trump seems to have lost his way. He started a war when he said he wouldn\u2019t, sending the price of gas through the roof. And he seems to talk more about ballrooms and arches than he does about how he will bring prices back down.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s losing touch with the American people,\u201d Mr. Pasek said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Gilbert said that he had stopped following the news closely, choosing to spend more time outside with his dog, Mabel. But he voted for Mr. Trump in 2024, and he said he stands by that choice. He said he believed Mr. Trump had a plan for Iran.<\/p>\n

Mr. Pasek countered, \u201cHe says he has a plan, but then he doesn\u2019t tell us what it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mr. Pasek cited gas prices: \u201cHe says it\u2019s chump change. No, it\u2019s not! It\u2019s killing the people.\u201d<\/p>\n

He has noticed someone living in a car in a parking lot when he drives into town, he said. He worried about his granddaughter, 28, a college graduate from Michigan State University, who is working three jobs \u2014 one full-time and two part-time \u2014 but can\u2019t find a house she can afford.<\/p>\n

Those misgivings are being felt at the local party level. Doug Koopman, a member of the Kent County Republican Party\u2019s executive committee, said that it had been a struggle to get the foot soldiers of the midterm elections \u2014 volunteer door-knockers and canvassers \u2014 to pick up brochures to distribute door to door, leaving bags of them sitting around the party headquarters.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s very low energy on the Republican side,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s very low energy on the Republican side,\u201d said Doug Koopman, a member of the Kent County Republican Party\u2019s executive committee.<\/p>\n

In 2024, people lined up for nearly a mile in the rain in Grand Rapids to see Mr. Trump speak the night before the election. His campaign was dominant on social media, reaching younger people who\u2019d never voted before, such as Sebastian Covey, who remembered Mr. Trump \u201cpopping\u201d on his feeds. Mr. Covey had not voted before 2024; he did that year, for the president.<\/p>\n

Now 24, he said his focus was elsewhere. He lives more than an hour away from his landscaping job in Hudsonville, a bustling suburb just west of Grand Rapids, because rents are cheaper, but the rising gas price has made his commute painful. He swapped his truck for a car, but a colleague he had been car-pooling with just found another job. He and his girlfriend have been looking for a rental closer to work, but so far they have not found anything they can afford.<\/p>\n

He said he hadn\u2019t thought about whether he would vote.<\/p>\n

\u201cI should care more, but it\u2019s hard to keep up,\u201d he said during a lunch break in a Wendy\u2019s restaurant.<\/p>\n

Even Republicans who are in politics say they are tired \u2014 worn out by the battles between pro-MAGA politicians and traditional Republicans. Bob Harrison, 76, a Republican county commissioner in Berrien County, where MAGA forces won control of the county G.O.P., said those forces took away the right to vote on party decisions from local elected officials like him.<\/p>\n

Those officials \u201cpretty much all walked away from the Berrien County Republican Party\u201d to raise funds for their own political candidates, said Dr. Harrison, a retired community college president.<\/p>\n

\u201cI should care more, but it\u2019s hard to keep up,\u201d said Sebastian Covey, who voted for Trump in 2024 and is not sure if he\u2019ll vote in November.<\/p>\n

Dr. Harrison, who voted for Mr. Trump in 2024, said the hard-core Trump supporters remained unchanged, but \u201cthey\u2019ve lost the support of the moderates like myself, people who think and choose and maybe split their votes.\u201d<\/p>\n

Warren Stewart, 69, who lives in Stevensville, Mich., and works restoring old homes, said he liked to think that Mr. Trump was working to restore the country, but he is starting to have doubts.<\/p>\n

Clients often get nervous when the project is only halfway through, he said, but he assures them that he always has a plan for bringing the home back to its original beauty. He wonders if Mr. Trump does, too.<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes he really know what he\u2019s doing?\u201d Mr. Stewart said.<\/p>\n

He would never vote for a Democrat; he feels bludgeoned by liberals online, he said. But he\u2019s not sure he\u2019ll vote for Republicans, either.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just spent $60 on $30 worth of groceries and am about to go fill up for $5 a gallon,\u201d he said, carrying two bags of groceries to his car. \u201cIt feels like they\u2019re stress-testing us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

Sabrina Tavernise<\/p>\n

National Writer at Large<\/p>\n

I have been talking to Republican voters since 2016, and really for the first time, am hearing a big departure from Trump. It’s remarkable to me, considering how electric he was in those early years — speaking to working class people about trade and economics in a new way, and saying the Iraq war was a mistake — something unusual for the Republican political class. But we are ten years in, with rising gas prices and a war that seems to be going badly, and, what I’m hearing now from so many Republican voters about Mr. Trump is what Mr. Pasek in my story said: “He’s not making sense.”<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Ruth Igielnik contributed reporting and research.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If Democrats make big gains in the midterm elections in four weeks, it may not only be because…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":368399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[651,1452,859,75,84,83,46937,9,24,63,5285,855,1069],"class_list":["post-368398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-manhattan","tag-democratic-party","tag-donald-j","tag-house-of-representatives","tag-manhattan","tag-manhattan-headlines","tag-manhattan-news","tag-midterm-elections-2026","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-republican-party","tag-senate","tag-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/368399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}