Danger ahead
Why Trump and his party should heed the polling that shows them headed for disaster in the 2026 midterms. And the damage Gov. Jeff Landry continues inflicting on Louisiana's universities.
President Donald Trump and his GOP allies are not simply putting our economy and our democracy at risk with their reckless and corrupt policies; they’re also putting their control of Congress in jeopardy.
I have several recent polls to share in this post. None of them has much, if any, good news for Trump or the GOP.
And the main takeaway of it all is that Trump and his team should wake up and stop governing only for themselves and their wealthy friends. Trump might boost his political support if he aimed to be a president for all Americans, not just his white MAGA base.
And GOP leaders in Congress should begin standing up to Trump because, if they don’t, they’re likely to lose the House next year—and possibly the Senate.
A few prominent Republicans, like Reps. Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene seem to realize how precarious their position has become. They are gradually distancing themselves from him on the Epstein files and, in Greene’s case, some economic issues.
But if they all want to avoid being fatally strapped to a historically unpopular president and his historically unpopular policies, more in the GOP had better start separating itself from him.
In the end, it may not matter because most midterms are a referendum on the party in power, and no amount of criticism of Trump will help them overcome the fact that they’re firmly in Trump’s party. Most Republicans, regardless of how much they might try to separate themselves from Trump, will serve as his proxies in the November 2026 election.
Still, you’d expect them to try to put a little distance between themselves and the least popular of Trump’s policies.
And just how unpopular are Trump and his policies?
Here’s how NPR describes a big new poll released this week:
Heading into the 2026 midterm elections, there are some very big warning signs for Republicans in the latest NPR/PBS News/Marist poll. The survey of 1,443 adults, conducted from Nov. 10-13, found:
Democrats holding their largest advantage, 14 points, since 2017 on the question of who respondents would vote for if the midterm elections were held today;
President Trump’s approval rating is just 39%, his lowest since right after the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol;
A combined 6-in-10 blame congressional Republicans or Trump for the government shutdown; and
Nearly 6-in-10 say Trump’s top priority should be lowering prices — and no other issue comes close. . . .
Coming off huge wins up and down the ballot across the country in this year’s off-year elections, Democrats lead Republicans, 55%-41%, when people were asked who they would vote for in their district if the election for Congress were held today.
It’s the largest Democratic advantage on this question, known as the congressional ballot, in the Marist poll since November 2017. The parallel is striking, considering that was at the same point in Trump’s first term as this poll now. Democrats wound up winning 40 House seats in 2018. . . .
A big reason for Democrats’ advantage is that Trump is unpopular. Not only is he at 39% approval, the lowest of this second term in the Marist poll, but he gets just a 24% rating with independents as well.
Overall, almost half of those surveyed — 48% — said they strongly disapprove of the job the president is doing. That’s also the highest of this term and the highest since just after Jan. 6, 2021.
While the Democratic lead in the generic ballot question in the Marist poll may be an outlier, Trump’s standing with the American public in this poll is consistent with other recent polling.
And it’s terrible.
In a recent Reuters/IPSOS poll, his approval rating is 38 percent. In a recent CNN/ SRSS poll, it’s 37 percent. And in a recent AP/NORC poll, it’s 36 percent.
I was astonished by a graph that public opinion journalist G. Elliott Morris shared the other day on his excellent Substack, Strength in Numbers. It shows just how poorly Trump is doing with the public compared to his first term (during which he wasn’t all that popular, either).
As Morris notes, “This chart . . . shows how unprecedented a position Trump is in with the voters who are most likely to determine the outcome of close elections. While Trump is roughly as unpopular overall as he was at this point in his first term . . . the difference in his support with marginal voters is potentially consequential for next year’s midterms — and 2028 after that.”
Morris adds, “As the result of the 2025 elections suggest, Republican Senators will want to make the 2026 midterms about anything other than Donald Trump and his negative impacts on prices and affordability. Polls confirm this strategy.”
Morris shared another chart showing just how poorly Trump is doing with independent voters across almost every state in the nation.
It’s bad, really bad.
“[M]ore independents in every single state say they disapprove than approve of how Trump is handling his job as president. And the margin is not even close, at roughly -35 in the average state,” Morris wrote. “Based on this data, if I’m a Republican Senator up for re-election in 2026 (looking at you, Susan Collins), I’m looking for every opportunity available to distance myself from Trump.”
Gov. Jeff Landry is gambling our universities’ accreditation—and their futures
Gov. Jeff Landry’s higher ed “task force” has a big idea for Louisiana’s public universities: abandon their longtime accreditor and join a sketchy new right-wing organization designed to appease conservative politicians.
Landry and the task force want LSU and other state schools to leave the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (SACS) and join the Commission for Public Higher Education (CPHE), a new accreditor supported by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and other culture-war conservatives.
Landry aims to use LSU and other public universities as test cases for an ideological experiment. And those who will suffer aren’t the politicians; it will be students, families, faculty, and the state’s already fragile economy.
Accreditation isn’t just a gold star for the university’s marketing materials. It’s the requirement for federal student aid: Pell Grants, federal loans, and work-study. Without federally recognized accreditation, there’s no aid.
SACS is a well-established regional accreditor with full recognition from the U.S. Department of Education. CPHE, on the other hand, is new and still navigating the federal process. If Louisiana rushes into the arms of a new, unproven accreditor, there is no guarantee that the transition will go smoothly.
Trump will only be president for another three years, at most. In 2029, a new Democratic president and his or her Education Department might view CPHE and its member schools’ eligibility for federal financial aid unfavorably.
Look at what could be at stake: LSU and other schools enroll several hundred thousand students. A sizable percentage of those students receive some form of financial aid. Tens of thousands rely on federal grants and loans to enroll and stay enrolled. If their school’s accreditation is disrupted, delayed, or questioned, they will have more than just a bureaucratic headache. Louisiana will have many thousands of students unable to register, families unable to pay, and a large hole in the universities’ budgets.
We’ve already seen what happens when an accreditor loses federal recognition. When the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) collapsed in 2022, dozens of institutions scrambled to find new accreditors to avoid losing access to federal aid.
Landry’s plan risks exposing LSU and other universities to that type of instability.
Supporters might frame this as “competition” and “freedom from red tape,” but don’t be fooled. The real issue conservatives have with SACS is that it sometimes says no when politicians try to meddle with universities.
SACS has standards on “undue external influence.” It expects governing boards to act independently and protect academic freedom. That’s exactly what infuriates governors like Landry and DeSantis. They want an accreditor that won’t object when they dictate to presidents, muzzle faculty, turn their campuses into ideological billboards by erecting statues to Charlie Kirk.
Landry’s task force is also advocating for a law that prevents any accreditor from enforcing standards that “violate state law.” That might seem harmless until you think about what some of those state laws are. If Louisiana passes laws targeting diversity programs, limiting what can be taught about race or gender, or changing governance, the message to the accreditor is clear: You stay silent and look the other way.
LSU and other schools already struggle to recruit and retain top faculty. How many serious scholars want to move their families to a place where the governor’s office is the quality-control department?
LSU is an R1 research university accredited by SACS, along with many of the major public universities in the South. Graduate schools, professional programs, employers, and national fellowships know what that means.
CPHE, on the other hand, has been branded from day one as a conservative alternative to the “woke” accreditors. Its organizing principle is ideological grievance rather than educational excellence. Even if it gains federal recognition, the rest of the country will clearly see what it is.
That matters for every LSU graduate applying to law school in another region, to a Ph.D. program at a top university, or to competitive national fellowships. It matters to researchers seeking federal grants and private foundation funding.
When LSU signals, “We’d rather be part of a DeSantis-Landry pet project than the mainstream accreditation system,” it is intentionally lowering its own standing.
Landry will be out of office long before the full extent of the damage is clear. The students who will spend their careers under that cloud won’t have that same luxury.
Even without considering ideology, the logistics of this plan are a potential mess.
Changing an institutional accreditor takes several years. It requires lots of time and focus from university leaders and staff, time and effort that could be used to improve teaching, student support, or research. Attempting to do this for LSU, UL, Southern, and the community and technical colleges systems simultaneously increases the risk of errors and missed deadlines.
Additionally, the task force wants to allow institutions to “shop” among accreditors. This would promote political forum-shopping—GOP-friendly accreditor here, perhaps another body there—and result in fragmented standards across the state.
Good luck to students trying to transfer credits or enroll in joint programs when Louisiana has turned accreditation into a partisan buffet line.
Then there’s the fact that Landry’s task force reportedly violated Louisiana’s Open Meetings Law by failing to give proper notice of its key meeting. If they can’t even follow basic transparency rules while reshaping the entire accreditation landscape, why should anyone trust them with the far more complex legal and regulatory maze of federal recognition?
You can’t run a modern public university system without stable, credible accreditation. Landry and his allies want to rip out that foundation and replace it with an ideological experiment undertaken in anger at “woke” standards and modest constraints on political interference.
If they succeed, Landry may gain more influence and power over LSU and the rest of the state’s universities. However, it will come at the expense of students’ financial security, faculty’s academic freedom, and the long-term reputations of the degrees these institutions grant.
That’s not reform; it’s vandalism.
It’s not too early for some Louisiana history-themed Christmas shopping
If someone on your Christmas list loves LSU football and Louisiana politics, wrap up a story that ties them together.
My recent book from LSU Press, “Kingfish U: Huey Long and LSU,” shows how power, patronage, and a football powerhouse grew up together—and why that history still echoes today. With the latest headlines about gubernatorial meddling in LSU affairs, this book is … timely.
Get a signed, personalized copy directly from me at my website: www.RobertMannBooks.com.
You can also buy my other books, too, including “You Are My Sunshine: Jimmie Davis and the Biography of a Song.”
Bob, I wish you’d run for Senate!
Thanks again for your detailed analysis. I make regular calls to my Representative Julia Letlow asking how she can continue to be in lock-step support on Mike Johnson’s “leadership” and Mr. Trump’s continued destructive, unprincipled, and cruel actions. Her staff members are polite and respectful, so I assume they put my calls on the tally sheet. I argue that we need to press our disagreement with the leadership of Johnson and Trump as often and in as many forms a possible within the borders of our Constitution. I also think that Rep. Letlow and others are complicit by supporting the current leaders in their failure to support the real interests of the American people, and by failing to protect the most vulnerable among us. Also, I now throw all fund raising mail from LSU in the trash can before even reading what is enclosed. We need to elect new leadership in the next round.