Are Political Winds Blowing in Republicans’ Favor Again?

For most of the summer, President Biden and the Democrats had the political winds at their backs.

They saw their poll numbers rise as gas prices fell, as the Supreme Court refocused voters on abortion, and as the Jan. 6 hearings and the investigation into Donald J. Trump’s handling of classified documents turned the media’s attention toward an unpopular former president — rather than the current one.

But with six weeks until this November’s midterm elections, there are a few signs that the political winds may have begun to blow in a different direction — one that might help Republicans over the final stretch. The political spotlight may be drifting back toward issues where Republicans have an advantage, like the economy and immigration.

It can be difficult to discern these kinds of subtle shifts in the national mood, but Google Search trends offer a decent rough measure. For the first time since the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, Google searches for the economy and immigration have overtaken searches about abortion. Searches for democracy or the Jan. 6 hearings have also fallen.

It’s still too early to say whether this subtle shift in the electorate’s attention will work to the advantage of Republicans. To extend the “political winds” analogy, maybe the pro-Democratic winds have subsided, yielding a relatively stable political environment that won’t do much to nudge the polls in either direction. Indeed, the polls haven’t moved much at all over the last few weeks.

But the new Google trends numbers resemble the figures from the spring, when Republicans held the edge before the Dobbs ruling and the Jan. 6 hearings, and before the F.B.I. investigation into Mr. Trump. In all three cases, an unusual outside event helped focus the electorate on an issue that helped Democrats. As those galvanizing factors fall into the rearview mirror, the electorate’s gaze appears to be drifting back toward the earlier set of issues.

The new economic news is in a somewhat different category. A bad inflation report sparked another round of interest rate increases and fears of another recession. The stock market is down significantly over the last month. This might be more than a return to the politics of April: It may represent a meaningful shift in the national political environment.

So far, there aren’t many signs that the shifting winds have begun to reshape the race for Congress. But if you look carefully, there are at least a couple of tantalizing clues. Mr. Biden’s approval ratings haven’t increased this month, and Republicans appear to have made some modest gains in a handful of key Senate races, like Wisconsin’s.

The so-called generic ballot polls, which ask whether voters prefer Democrats or Republicans, haven’t really changed quite yet. Democrats still enjoy a slight lead, according to FiveThirtyEight.

But this weekend, two polls showed Republicans with a lead among likely voters — including an ABC/Washington Post poll showing Republicans up by five percentage points among likely voters. It may prove to be an outlier, or perhaps it’s the first sign of a material shift in the race.

Likely voters leaning Republican?

The ABC/Washington Post poll wasn’t the only measure of the race on Sunday. CBS News found Republicans ahead by one point among likely voters, 46 percent to 45 percent.

The difference between an overall Republican victory of one or five points on Election Day would be hugely significant, but from a statistical standpoint the difference between leads of one and five points in two polls isn’t nearly so stark. So I wouldn’t dwell too much on the difference between the two top-line numbers.

But the surveys do appear to have one thing in common: They show Republicans enjoying a turnout advantage. In the CBS News poll, Republicans were five points likelier than Democrats to say they would “definitely” vote, 79 percent to 74 percent. Similarly, ABC/Post found 81 percent of Republicans “absolutely certain” to vote compared with 75 percent of Democrats.

This is a pretty different story from our last NYT/Siena poll, which was finishing up about two weeks ago. In our survey, 51 percent of Democrats said they were “almost certain” to vote, compared with 52 percent of Republicans.

In part as a result, the Times/Siena poll did not find an especially stark difference between likely and registered voters. Democrats clung to a one-point lead, 47 percent to 46 percent, compared with their two-point edge among registered voters.

The difference between likely voters — the people a pollster thinks will actually go to the polls — and the broader population of adults or registered voters is always an important factor, but it’s especially important in midterm elections. The lower turnout allows the party with higher enthusiasm — usually the party out of power, in a midterm — to enjoy a more sizable turnout advantage than it could sustain in a higher-turnout presidential election.

Over the last few months, there haven’t been many signs of another big Republican turnout advantage, like the ones they enjoyed in 2010 and 2014 or even in last November’s elections for governor. If anything, it has been the Democrats showing signs of unusual enthusiasm, whether it’s the surge in voter registration after Dobbs or the strong Democratic showings in special elections, which tend to draw the most engaged voters.

With the national environment seemingly shifting toward issues where Republicans have the edge, it wouldn’t be surprising if we started to see a few more signs of a Republican enthusiasm advantage. I’m open to the idea that the new ABC and CBS surveys are the start of a trend; it’ll be interesting to see whether there’s any shift in our next national poll.

(No, it’s not yet in the field.)