Jon Stewart Admits He’s Pessimistic About Midterm Elections: Here’s Why

Jon Stewart is pessimistic about the upcoming midterm elections, despite polls trending in Democrats’ favor to take control of both the House and the Senate.

The Daily Show host confessed that he’s in “a little bit of a dark hole about the election” on Wednesday’s (October 21) episode of The Weekly Show podcast. Stewart said there is “not a one of them that deserves to be reelected” when it comes to the Republican nominees, but he isn’t confident the wider American public thinks the same way.

“Will there be any price to pay for the Republican Party in general for acquiescing to the abject recklessness and megalomaniacal instincts of this guy that’s more interested in building ballrooms and monuments than making measured decisions and getting us into a reckless war and just throwing out impulsive tariffs that drive costs up?” Stewart said, per The Wrap. “Like, will there be any… is there anything that can happen?”

Stewart’s cohosts, producers Brittany Mehmedovic and Gillian Spear, shared a more optimistic take. Spear revealed she was recently at a diner in Middle America and overheard a man say that after voting for Trump in 2024, he could no longer support any politician who still stands by the president. “I heard exactly what I wanted to hear,” she noted.

Mehmedovic added that she feels good about Democrats’ chances because of how “nervous” the Trump administration seems on the campaign trail. “I really do. I have this sense that they’re slightly nervous,” she stated. “Like, Trump going to Kansas? They’re just, there’s something about it that I’m feeling optimistic.”

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“Yeah, I hope so,” Stewart replied. “I’ve just, because as we’ve talked earlier, I think the national media is so disconnected from the reality of things that all they care about is the horse race and creating narratives around blue wave and not blue wave and tsunami, and the polling is always so f***ed and so wrong that I just really have no sense.”

The comedian highlighted a campaign ad from Texas that attacked Democratic senatorial nominee James Talarico. “I can’t even remember where I was, but I saw a commercial from Texas that is just a woman going, ‘James Talarico wants to make it illegal for you to object to transgender mutilations on children! He wants you to go to jail if you don’t agree with him! I can’t vote for that!'”

“And you’re just like, ‘What the f** is happening?'” he added.