The midterms will test the nation's political direction and confidence
Voting stickers rest at Contra Costa County’s election operations facility on May 27, 2026 in Martinez, Calif.
Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images
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Benjamin Fanjoy/Getty Images
Millions of Americans are looking to Tuesday’s midterm elections with heightened anticipation or anxiety.
Or both.
At this point, we can expect at least some portion of the nation to have its political confidence — and perhaps even its sense of security — tested in the days and weeks ahead. That test could also continue for some time to come.
Is winter coming for MAGA?
The first place to look for elevated anxiety about the midterms would be among those voters most loyal to President Trump. He calls them MAGA, borrowing from his 2016 “Make America Great Again” theme. Alternatively, with a broad smile, he just calls them “my base.”
But winter may be coming. Polling suggests that on Tuesday the midterm electoral pendulum will once again swing back against the White House incumbent — as it has in every midterm over the last 100 years with very few exceptions.
More punishment for the party of the second-term president would be expected in the blue states that he lost in each of his three White House campaigns. But this fall’s polls are also pointing to significant losses for Republicans in swing states and even in some of the red states Trump won all three times — often by double-digit margins.
That is why the president spent the last weekend of this campaign on making an electoral “goal line stand” for the Senate by visiting Iowa and Kansas.
When Trump, then a first-time candidate, was at high tide 10 years ago, he won 31 Iowa counties that had previously voted for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. And as for Kansas, the historically Republican state has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932.
Yet Trump put live visits to Iowa and Kansas on his schedule for the final weekend, even as he did remote “tele-rallies” in 19 other states. (The Iowa-Kansas plan was briefly cancelled late in the pre-election week, then reinstated just before the weekend.)
That strategy suggests Trump’s political team remains focused on limiting GOP losses in what will be a tough environment for their party. Most observers, including those searching hardest for objective measurements, now predict Trump’s party will lose its slim majority in the House. The consensus is that the Senate is too close to call, and it is possible the GOP could hold the majority using the tie-breaking vote to which Vice President Vance is entitled.
Best way to limit losses?
But precedent is not really the explanation for Trump and his party’s expected defeats. Midterm elections inevitably act as referenda on current officeholders, and there is no current officeholder in the world so visible as the U.S. president — especially the Oval Office’s current mega-mediagenic occupant. Put another way, presidents are the leaders and symbols of their party, but Trump has taken the personalization to another level. Presidents routinely campaign for their party’s midterm candidates, but Trump (“Pretend I’m on the ballot”) has worked hard to make the election about himself.
In Trump’s first term he tried out a more conventional approach, acting as an executive in a system of shared powers. This time around, Trump has taken that role as a starting point. He has cast himself as the driver of historic events and the avenger of many wrongs — large or small, real or imagined. He presents himself as the architect of a new Washington and the author of a new era.
And he has done it all despite objections from U.S. allies around the world and from Congress and from the federal bench.
How it’s playing depends on audience
While Trump’s bravura interpretation of his role has played well with his base, the larger electorate is a different story. Among the more effective themes taken up by anti-Trump rallies has been the ultra-simple, anti-autocrat mantra of “No Kings.”
Critics and Democrats have been able to focus on promises and pronouncements Trump has made but on which he has yet to deliver. Peace in Ukraine on Day 1? A new era for Israel and the Palestinians? Not so far.
These foreign policy issues matter, but to voters the greater disappointment is economic. Trump said he would make things cheaper and tame inflation. But inflation remains elevated and the public sees the price of gas leading a sustained surge in everyday costs.
So it should be no surprise that any average of Trump’s recent approval numbers shows them falling from a clear majority (52% in average of polls) early in 2025 to an average of 37% now — breaking below the 40% threshold that has signaled brutal midterm results in the past.
But are Democrats ready to take over?
On the other hand, the confidence some Democrats are showing may be premature. If they win the House, their majority will be on the modest side by historic standards. If they eke out a majority in the Senate it will be so narrow that the primary beneficiaries are likely to be the mavericks who are willing to buck the party leadership — on both sides of the aisle.
Moreover, even robust Democratic majorities would need to confront the significant divisions that persist — and may be growing — in their ranks. The most glaring is the contrast between majoritarian consensus builders on one hand and the party’s firebrands on the left. The latter group has been pleased with the party’s class of nominees for Congress this year, including a cadre aligned or associated with the Democratic Socialists of America.
The DSA candidates have attracted attention from the media and been prominently featured in Republicans’ fall campaign ads and messaging, even in places where the DSA favorite lost in the primary and is not on the November ballot.
To some degree, the 2026 Democrats have been able to unite around issues such as energy and grocery prices and the war on Iran. Opposing vast data centers to be built to serve the AI industry has been another shared cause. And whatever their differences, this year’s Democrats have been a chorus of opposition to Trump.
But there are reasons to doubt the united front can be preserved if the Democrats get back into power. Most expect at least one chamber of Congress to be theirs in the new year, and there will be a new president after 2028.
One political demographer and author who has been focused on the Democrats’ internal issues is Ruy Teixeira, who spent most of his career at think tanks associated with Democrats such as the Center for American Progress and the Brookings Institution but is now at the business-oriented American Enterprise Institute. He is best known for his 2002 book with John Judis entitled, The Emerging Democratic Majority, but Teixeira has long been focused on the party’s history with white, non-college educated voters and is also the author with Joel Rogers of America’s Forgotten Majority: Why The White Working Class Still Matters.
In October, Teixeira published 11 questions he said Democrats must confront if they regain congressional power. The final question was whether the party would embrace positions that resonate with working-class voters and prioritize their interests rather than its recent concentration on race, gender, energy, environment and social policy.
Casting a longer shadow
Beyond the questions for the two major parties, these midterms have cast doubt on the conduct of U.S. elections themselves. For generations, Americans have generally shown confidence in their electoral systems and results, but that too has become a target.
There is a haunting song on Eric Clapton’s classic 1992 album Unplugged that repeats the title line: “Running on Faith.”
That is one way to think of democracy. Faith in the democratic system is required if the system is going to work and survive.
Democracy has often been called an ongoing experiment. It tests whether people can have a voice in their own governing, and whether that voice can be heard and heeded.
It tests the mechanisms and individuals involved, to be sure. But ultimately, it tests voters’ faith in the system itself. Will the will of the people be clear and will it drive the next phase of American political life?
Nonpartisan experts in voting laws and machinery — academics, journalists, lawyers and others — have, as a rule, defended the current state of American processes. Legislation, administrative professionalism and fresh funding at the national and state levels have upgraded the administration of American elections since the Help America Vote Act became law two decades ago, following the Florida vote-counting debacle in the year 2000. HAVA enabled states and localities to replace punch-card ballots and other outdated methods with touch-screen technology and preservable paper trails, improving voter confidence and security.
And yet, faith in the system is likely to be tested in the days ahead. It’s not just about one race or one state. It’s not just about candidates and issues. It’s about the system that Trump repeatedly calls into question without evidence.
A well-established pattern
As far back as his first nomination in 2016, Trump was telling his crowds that if he lost it would be because the process was fraudulent. There was no way the Democrats could win unless they cheated, he said, and a defeat would simply prove his assertion.
Four years later, Trump was able to summon thousands of his supporters to Washington on Jan. 6, 2021 to protest and deny his defeat in the previous November’s presidential election. “Stop the steal” was the cry, based on nothing but conjecture and emotion and a preference for a different outcome.
In contrast, Trump accepted the results in 2024 as he and his party won. But he continues to label information — be it polling results or simple daily news reporting — as fake. He responds to a question from a White House credentialed reporter by asking: “Who are you with?” Then he says: “You’re fake news.”
He regularly tells his audiences to ignore “fake news” and “fake polls.” It is easy to imagine him exhorting his followers to ignore “fake results.”
There will be tension on election night this week, as there always is. But the greater stress may come in the days and weeks ahead.
Stay tuned.
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