Asked by AFR host Jenna Ellis to describe the current political climate before the midterms, pollster Mark Mitchell said he personally watches the YouGuv poll that measures public opinion.
Mitchell, the CEO of Honest Polling, said a weekly YouGuv question for registered voters is, “Is the economy getting better or worse?”
When AFN reviewed the most recent poll, on Sept. 21, it found 58% of registered voters chose “Getting Worse” and only 16% chose “Getting Better.” In the middle, 21% selected “About the Same.”
Broken down by political parties, 83% of Democrat voters chose “Worse” and 28% of Republican voters chose “Better.” Among the independent voters, 68% also said “Worse.”
As the midterms near, Mitchell said those Independents can’t go ignored by the Republican Party if they want to maintain a majority.
“The person that's deciding this election is the Independent, who voted for Republicans and Trump because of Trump's platform,” Mitchell advised. “And is now just sitting out [the election] because they are frustrated they didn't get what they want.”
What people want, according to the polls, is lower gas prices and grocery bills that don't blow the family budget.
A Fox News poll of registered voters found 3/4 have a negative view of the economy. A total of 61% called gas prices a major problem, and 62% mentioned grocery prices.
Rollins gave Dems viral clip
The Trump administration didn’t do itself any favors this week when Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins gave Democrats a viral clip for midterm political ads.
“We have more people eating beef than ever before, but if it is too expensive, you can eat chicken, pork, salmon, eggs,” Rollins told Benny Show host Benny Johnson.
The context of that discussion was beef prices and the reasons they are high. Acknowledging that beef is high, Rollins blamed past environmental policies under the Biden administration. She also said, with a laugh, there is a supply chain problem because beef now sits at the top of the protein-friendly USDA food pyramid.
Even with that explanation, the ag secretary seemed flippant about families buying ground beef for their burgers and spaghetti. “Even though the price of a pound of ground beef was $6.50, most Americans say, 'I'm good with that. I want this protein for my family.' So they continue to buy,” she told Johnson.
U.S. beef prices are tracked by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The average price for August, the most recent month, was $6.92 a pound, according to a the online chart viewed by American Family News.
When Donald Trump took office in January 2025, ground beef was averaging $5.54 a pound.
After the clip of Rollins went viral, and was seized on by Democrats, radio host Jesse Kelly ripped Rollins for being so careless.
“This stuff loses us elections. This is kicking dirt in people’s faces. Stop this,” he wrote on X.
National gas prices, which are tracked by AAA, are now averaging $4.47 nationwide after averaging $3.17 a year ago.
The price of diesel, which affects shipping costs and thus most products on a store shelf, broke AAA’s records with a national average of $6.52 a gallon as of Sept. 22.
In the country’s poorer states such as Mississippi, where median family income is lowest, the average price of gasoline was $3.99 a gallon on Wednesday.
The average national price of gasoline was $3.10 a gallon when Donald Trump was sworn in for a second term on January 20, 2025.
In Mississippi, a gallon of gas was averaging $2.66 a gallon when Trump took office.
Mitchell, who previously oversaw polling at Rasmussen, launched his Honest Polling firm in late July.
On a previous AFR appearance with Ellis, Mitchell said he left Rasmussen because the right-leaning poll firm was under political pressure to please the White House, and the Republican National Committee, with dishonest polling numbers.
In that radio interview, which aired in July, Mitchell described how he visited with President Trump at the White House in November 2025. The discussion was the midterm elections, then a year away, and the veteran pollster told the president his support was slipping and he urged Trump to focus on domestic issues and his “America First” agenda.
Mitchell said he urged President Trump to embrace what Mitchell called “pragmatic economic populism,” but the president seemed disengaged and didn’t seem interested like Mitchell had hoped.
