Pro-MAGA pollster Rich Baris of Big Data Polls struggled to offer good news about the midterms to the Charlie Kirk show hosts, Andrew Kolvet and Blake Neff.
"So, you know, Rich, but like that, you're talking about 2028. What about the midterms?" Kolvet asked on a Tuesday podcast. "I mean, there's, you know, you've had Joe Kent leaving this morning announcing his, his departure from the administration... We've got affordability. There's economic things to consider. Most people just care about how much money they have in their wallet at the end of the month."
"Is there any good news for the midterms?" the host wondered.
"Well, you said stay positive. What am I positive? Look, I'm just not," Baris replied. "I tried to scream and yell for almost a year now about how to fix 2026. There is still roughly an 18% chance historically that Republicans could turn it around."
Kolvet noted that recent YouGov polls showed the midterms tightening following President Donald Trump's strikes on Iran.
"We're also seeing a bit of a widening out again," Baris lamented.
"So Harry Enten, your favorite, had a segment on CNN basically saying 90% of the Republican base support the war in Iran. What are you seeing on that front?" Kolvet asked.
"Look, you know, first of all, you know, it's funny somebody like Harry Enten would suddenly be an authority on the MAGA base or the polls that he chooses to cherry-pick," Baris replied. "There's like two pollsters in the entire country who know how to poll MAGA and that's about it. The rest of them get lucky sometimes and don't other times. We may be the one who's been polling MAGA as asking people, are you or are you not MAGA, longer than anybody else."
"The fact is MAGA has shrunk. So, you know, I can get into certain numbers, but we were trying to stay positive today, right?" he added. "You know, there's a purification through subtraction going on, which I think is important for people to understand. And the people that have been subtracted are what I'm calling, like, you know, all the winning parts. right? The younger voters, the younger, especially Black men, Hispanics, right?"
Baris said MAGA's biggest drop had been with younger women.
"They have slipped the most in our polling. Some of it had to deal with Epstein. Some of the war. They don't like the war. MAHA is big, huge," he explained.

