Veteran pollster Mark Mitchell appeared on the “Jenna Ellis in the Morning” AFR show just one day after he launched a new polling firm, Honest Polling Company.
That new business venture comes after Mitchell left Rasmussen Reports, where he was head pollster, after he said the right-leaning polling firm was under pressure to please the White House and the national Republican Party with dishonest polling numbers.
“What I've been trying to do is help the Trump movement,” Mitchell told Ellis. “I'm looking out for the American people, and I don't represent any party.”
Invited by Vice President J.D. Vance, Mitchell visited with President Trump at the White House in November 2025 – now nine months ago – to discuss the midterm elections that were then one year away.
The pollster’s message to the populist president, he said later, was to warn Trump that his support was slipping. The base that elected him a year earlier wanted Trump to refocus on domestic issues and fulfill his “America First” campaign promises, especially related to the economy and the cost of living.
Mitchell later 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.
It didn’t help Mitchell’s standing at The White House when The Washington Post interviewed Mitchell and published a story about his disappointment in Trump.
In a comment for this story, White House spokesman Davis Ingle said the "ultimate poll" was the November 5, 2024 election, when nearly 80 million Americans "overwhelmingly" elected Donald Trump to deliver on his "popular and common-sense" agenda.
"No other President in history has accomplished more for the American people than President Trump, who is working tirelessly to create jobs, cool inflation, increase housing affordability, and more. President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best motivator, and unmatched messenger for the Republican party who is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress to continue delivering wins for the American people," Ingle told AFN.
Voters want 'domestic policy fixes'
No longer welcomed at the White House, and no longer at Rasmussen, Mitchell told Ellis and her audience the American public has unhappily watched Trump and his administration focus on foreign policy issues through most of 2026.
“We’ve asked voters over and over again,” he said, “and the numbers increasingly say they're desperate for domestic policy fixes.”
One lingering issue affecting nearly every American adult is the price of gas. During the month Mitchell met with Trump, AAA reported the national average for a gallon of unleaded gas was $3.10 a gallon. That figure has now jumped more than a dollar, averaging $4.09 nationwide, as of July 2026.
The price of gasoline is really a mix of both domestic policy and foreign policy, since the price of crude oil jumps up and down depending on the safety of commercial ships transiting the Strait of Hormuz.
President Trump pinned the blame for rising gas prices on “gasoline retailers” in a June social media post that accused them of price gouging, but this month he told reporters gas prices will “go down rapidly” when the war against Iran ends.
Communism may save the GOP
Regarding current pre-midterm polling, Mitchell said Democrat voters are telling pollsters they’re enthusiastic about voting in November. That figure is 10 percent above GOP voter enthusiasm.
“So it’s not looking great,” he predicted.
The pollster also expressed concern over what is known as the generic ballot, which gauges political party support among voters. The current generic polling at Real Clear Politics shows Democrats with a seven-point lead over Republicans, 48% to 41%, according to a Quinnipiac poll.
None of the 25 generic polls viewed by AFN, which date back to July 6, show voters favoring the Republican Party over the Democratic Party.
For this story about negative polling, AFN asked the White House to provide or cite any positive polling for President Trump and Republicans to counter negative polls, but AFN did not receive an example of one from the White House Press Office.
What might help the Republican Party in November, Mitchell shared, is if the GOP can use the issue of socialism and socialist Democrat candidates to get the GOP base to the polls.
"Democrats can mess this up. Republicans could just luck out," he said.
Looking beyond November, however, Mitchell said there is a bigger issue much greater than Election Day turnout. Much of the American public now believes the "American Dream" is dead, he said, since polling shows many parents doubt their children will live a better life than them.
"That's like a death-of-an-empire thing," Mitchell warned.
For the Republicans to win, he said, they need to acknowledge that fear and uncertainty, and offer a plan to fix it.
