A longtime MAGA pollster delivered a sobering message to Fox News viewers on June 1, 2026, admitting that the Republican Party is showing alarming signs of weakness heading into the November 2026 midterm elections — and the warning came from one of President Donald Trump’s earliest and most loyal cheerleaders.
Matt Towery, a former member of the Georgia House of Representatives whose polling firm correctly forecast Trump’s victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, used an appearance on “Hannity” to acknowledge that Republican turnout is sliding in the very state that handed Trump a narrow win less than two years ago. The admission stunned viewers who have come to know Towery as a reliably optimistic voice for the MAGA movement.
When host Sean Hannity asked Towery to identify the GOP’s best “pickup opportunities” in 2026, the pollster pumped the brakes.
“I am concerned about one thing. And that is Republican turnout,” Towery said, before pointing directly to Georgia — a state Trump flipped back into the red column in 2024 by just two points.
Georgia Numbers Set Off Alarm Bells
The data Towery cited is striking. In Georgia’s May 2026 primary election, Democrats turned out 150,000 more early voters than Republicans — a dramatic reversal from the previous midterm cycle, when the GOP held a clear advantage in early voting. “That is not a good sign to me,” Towery told Hannity.
Georgia is shaping up as one of the most consequential battlegrounds of the cycle. All 14 of the state’s U.S. House seats are on the ballot — nine of them currently held by Republicans and five by Democrats. Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff is seeking re-election and will face the winner of a GOP runoff between Rep. Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley, scheduled for June 19. Polls currently put Collins ahead.
The governor’s race is equally crowded. With Gov. Brian Kemp term-limited, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has secured the Democratic nomination, while Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and healthcare executive Rick Jackson advance to a Republican runoff on June 16.
A Loyalist Losing the Faith
Towery’s pivot is particularly notable given his history. He urged Trump to run for president back in 2014, pointing to the businessman’s “star power.” He predicted Trump’s win in 2016 when few others did, and he forecast another Trump victory in 2020 by arguing pollsters were overlooking “the average guy on the street.” (Trump lost that contest to Joe Biden before reclaiming the White House in 2024.)
Now, even Towery is sounding the alarm. He urged the GOP to start hammering Trump’s accomplishments immediately, warning that waiting would be fatal.
“But you don’t hear about it, and I think Republicans need to start making that case whether they have to buy ads or whatever, right now, because it’ll be too late in October and November,” he said.
A Brutal Polling Landscape
The broader numbers paint an even uglier picture for the GOP. The latest New York Times/Siena poll showed Democrats leading Republicans by 11 points in the generic congressional ballot, 50 percent to 39 percent among registered voters. The same survey pegged Trump’s approval rating at just 37 percent. Only 30 percent of voters said launching the war in Iran was the right decision, and 64 percent disapproved of how the administration has handled the economy.
A Fox News national survey from May 2026 found that even a slim 51 percent majority of Republicans disapprove of Trump’s handling of inflation. Surveys have also shown some of Trump’s most reliable supporters — non-college-educated white voters and Latinos — drifting away.
Trump, for his part, has dismissed concerns over rising gas prices and spent much of the past several months promoting his $400 million White House ballroom. Republican strategist Whit Ayres recently told the New York Times that the president has drifted from the issues that powered his comeback.
“The president was elected to juice the economy, to bring down inflation, to stop illegal immigration and to get away from woke culture,” Ayres said. He also blasted what he called a $1.776 billion “weaponization slush fund” as a “whole new level of brazenness,” and warned: “If his highest goal were to maintain control of Congress, he would not be doing what he is doing.”
Primary Purges and General Election Peril
Trump has continued to flex his muscle inside the GOP, even knocking off internal critics like Rep. Thomas Massie, one of his loudest Republican opponents, who lost his Kentucky primary to a Trump-backed challenger. But strategists warn that primary dominance does not translate into general election strength.
“It’s true, you can take out Republicans in primaries, but Republicans are going to be very vulnerable this fall,” Ayres said, describing a growing phenomenon on the right he labeled “Trump Disappointment Syndrome.”
For Towery — the man who saw Trump’s political future before almost anyone — the message to Republicans was unmistakable: the clock is ticking, and the numbers in Georgia suggest it may already be later than the party realizes.
