'Absolute Disaster': CNN's Data Guru Throws Cold Water On GOP's Midterm Prospects

By Heather — April 17, 2026

CNN's Date Guru Harry Enten weighed in on yet another Republican loss this Tuesday, noting that things aren't looking good for their prospects in the midterm elections.

Progressive Democrat Analilia Mejia defeated her opponent Republican Joe Hathaway for former Rep. Mikie Sherrill's House seat this Thursday, and Enton had lots of bad news for Republicans on what this trend looks like for their chances to hold onto the House this fall.

Here's the back and forth with Enton and CNN's Kaitlan Collins:

COLLINS: Breaking news tonight as CNN can now project that the progressive Democrat, Analilia Mejia, will win the House special election to fill now Governor Mikie Sherrill's seat in New Jersey.

The decisive victory tonight against the Republican former mayor Joe Hathaway came just a couple of minutes after the polls closed across the state, and Mejia's win is further eroding Speaker Mike Johnson's historically narrow House majority that he has here in Washington.

That's because once she is sworn in, she will only be able to afford a single Republican defection on party-line votes to pass legislation. Not exactly the news he wants to hear tonight.

On the numbers, though, I want to bring in CNN's chief data analyst, Harry Enton. And Harry, what are you looking at when you look at her victory tonight?

ENTON: Yeah, I'll tell you what I'm looking at. Kamala Harris won that district, won New Jersey's 11th district. I love the ice cream in that district, I'll tell you—also many great places to go, you know. But bottom line is this.

Kamala Harris won that district by nine points, but right now we obviously see, we see that Mejia is way out ahead. But that is not surprising to because it's part of a larger picture.

Look, we are now talking about seven special elections. And in every single one of them that we've had during the second Trump era, the Democratic candidates for the House have outrun the Kamala Harris baseline.

You know, Florida won last year. I remember you and I were together. 23 points, 16 points in Florida-6. Virginia-11, 17 points. Arizona-7, 17 points, Tennessee-7, 13 points, Georgia-14, 25 points.

And while there are still votes to be counted here in New Jersey's 11th district, I will say at this point, we're probably looking at an overperformance of at least 10 points when all the votes are said and done.

So seven special elections and in every single one of them, the Democratic district for the House of Representatives has outperformed Kamala Harris's baseline by at least 10 points.

COLLINS: Okay, so also this is a state where we know suburban voters make up a pretty big share of the electorate. The president got to the White House by having more ground in the suburbs. You talked about Harris's numbers. What are the numbers show on that now in this moment?

ENTON: Yeah, absolute disaster, absolute disaster. You know, New Jersey 11th to me is part, is very much part of a trend. What are we talking about in the polling data where we can see it right here?

Just take a look here. You talk about suburban voters on Trump. You know, you look at Fox News polling back in October of 2024 versus Kamala Harris. Look at that, Donald Trump was leading by two points. You come to this side of the screen, look at how far down he's gone.

His net approval rating now, 20 points underwater among registered voters who are in the suburbs, suburban registered voters. So we are talking about an over 20 point shift. So what we see in New Jersey 11th, to me, is gonna be seen throughout the nation come this fall if these numbers hold.