Washington DC - A pollster known for his alignment with President Donald Trump warned that the MAGA base has dramatically shrunk and that Republicans may face a crushing defeat in the 2026 midterm elections.
Rich Baris of Big Data Polls struggled to be positive when pushed on the Charlie Kirk Show to share some good news for the Trump administration ahead of the Midterms.
"What am I positive about? Look, I'm just not," he said. "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 so much that they could even win the national House popular vote, but it is just 18%," he added.
"I think that there have been decisions that sent the Republicans on a course... The fact is that MAGA has shrunk. So, you know, I can get into certain numbers, but we were trying to stay positive today, right?"
Baris said that a "purification" of the MAGA movement is happening through the "subtraction" of certain groups of people who are becoming disillusioned with Trump's leadership.
He warned that many of the people who are leaving are "all the winning parts" that decided the 2024 election. In particular, he pointed to both the ongoing Jeffrey Epstein scandal and Trump's war with Iran as major issues of contention.
In a statement to the Daily Beast, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales disputed Baris' claims and insisted Trump has "delivered for Americans with a secure border, cooling inflation, working-class tax cuts, new trade deals, new drug pricing deals."