Donald Trump is clearly aware of the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, but the president wants the public to believe the controversy is a political benefit for him, boasting to reporters during his trip to Scotland that his approval rating is “up four and a half points” as a result of the intensifying mess. The Republican made a similar claim last week, insisting that the scandal has pushed his support five points higher.

Of course, Trump has an unfortunate habit of making up imaginary approval ratings for himself, and this is part of the same phenomenon. The latest national poll from The Associated Press, for example, showed the president with a 40% approval rating, while the latest national Gallup poll found his support sinking to 37%.

The day after the Gallup data was released, Republican Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio nevertheless declared on CNN that Trump has “never been more popular,” reality be damned.

While this has to be discouraging for the president, his party does have a credible retort: Trump’s support is down, but Democrats are struggling, too. As The Wall Street Journal reported, that point actually has some merit:

The Democratic Party’s image has eroded to its lowest point in more than three decades, according to a new Wall Street Journal poll, with voters seeing Republicans as better at handling most issues that decide elections. The new survey finds that 63% of voters hold an unfavorable view of the Democratic Party — the highest share in Journal polls dating to 1990 and 30 percentage points higher than the 33% who hold a favorable view.

These are, to be sure, deeply ugly findings for the Democratic Party, which very likely give GOP officials and candidates some additional hope for the near future.

There was, however, one key detail in the Journal’s report that stood out for me:

When asked how they would vote if the election were held today, more voters in the new Journal poll said they would back a Democrat for Congress over a Republican by 3 points, 46% to 43%. That is a significant advantage for the Democrats at this early stage.

And therein lies the point.

Democrats are clearly not winning any popularity contests — there’s no point in trying to spin results that show a party 30 points underwater — but Americans are still inclined to vote for them in the 2026 midterms. That might seem counterintuitive, but many of those expressing disapproval of the party are themselves Democratic voters, who want to see the party fight more aggressively but who’ll nevertheless cast ballots for Democratic candidates next year.

All of this also dovetails with many of the special election results we’ve seen since Election Day 2024, which have largely shown Democratic candidates overperforming, despite the party’s national difficulties.

Republicans, in other words, getting their hopes up because of the Democrats’ poor standing should probably tweak their expectations accordingly.