For the White House, the midterm elections are always agony. They are always a referendum on the president.
On October 12 2010, I was serving on the Democratic staff of the US House of Representatives. It was just two years after Barack Obama’s historic presidential election victory. His majority in the House was 39 seats. I took a scan of the House races in the upcoming midterm elections. There were at least 86 vulnerable Democratic seats in play. My best estimate, that day, was that we would lose 54 seats, leaving the Democrats at least 15 short of a majority. It was clear all was lost.
In every Democratic office, the staff discussed with their representatives the catastrophe on the horizon. Republicans in the House are having that discussion right now.
Obama was routed with a 64-seat loss in the House that November. But the surprise was the Democrats retained control of the Senate, 53-47 seats, which is exactly what the Republicans hold today.
A replay of that scenario from 16 years ago would be but a modest catastrophe for President Donald Trump. He would still be dominant in Washington, exercising his immense executive power and keeping his hold on the Senate.
But that is not how expert political analysts are seeing the outcome of this election less than a month out from polling day. Charlie Cook, the founder of the Cook Political Report, is one of the most cautious. He projects the Democrats will take at least five to 15 seats and win control of the House. The Senate is more up in the air, where the Democrats need a net gain of at least four seats.
If Trump loses control of the Senate, it means his appointments – judges, cabinet officers, ambassadors – will not pass without Democrat support. All his legislative initiatives would have to be acceptable to Democrats.
The Democrats could also pass bill after bill on key issues such as affordability, inflation, energy prices and health care, and send them to the president’s desk, where Trump would likely veto them. There could be joint House-Senate investigations into Trump’s finances and exercise of power.
And all this activity will set the stage for the 2028 presidential campaign.
Troubled times for Trump
The political atmosphere has turned dark for Trump and Republicans across the country. Democratic Senate candidates have suddenly become fiercely competitive in solid Republican states like Iowa, Kansas, Texas, and South Carolina.
Amy Walter, publisher and editor-in-chief of the Cook Report, last week observed,
If you’re the party in the White House, there are really three options for you on election day. The election day is going to be bad; it’s going to be really bad; or it’s going to be catastrophically bad. You know that going in. Now we’re into catastrophically bad territory.
There is no mystery here. Trump has become one of the most unpopular presidents in modern American history. His approval rating is at a record low of 32% – the lowest of any president since Harry Truman in 1952.
He is under water in 39 of the 50 states, including Republican stalwarts Texas and Florida. A decisive majority of adults believe the national economy and the country as a whole are worse off in Trump’s second term.
Trump’s management of the Iran war is exceedingly unpopular. On health care, cost of living, foreign policy, the economy and AI, voters trust Democrats more than Republicans.
The president and Republicans are also losing support among Latino voters – a pivotal demographic that boosted Trump’s election victory in 2024.
In polling on a generic ballot – will you vote for a Democrat or a Republican in the midterms? – Democrats have a double-digit edge, with Democratic voters more motivated to turn out than Republican voters.Trump is effectively forced to campaign in at least five states – Texas, Iowa, Alaska, Ohio and Texas – that he won by double digits in 2024.
He is also in denial about his standing and the polls. On the stump, Trump gives himself an “A+” on inflation. Questioned by Time magazine on his low polls, Trump said, “They’re fake numbers. I would beat anybody running today by 20 points. Your numbers that you have are fake. The pollsters are corrupt.” In Ohio, Trump told the crowd, “We’re gonna win big, and we’re gonna shove it up their ass.”
Trump pleads with voters to “just pretend I am on the ballot”. The problem with that tactic is it triggers voters who disapprove of him to get out and vote.
The president is also now urging his supporters to vote by mail – something he has vociferously opposed, claiming falsely that it enables Democrats to rig elections. But this desperate instruction will make it harder for Trump to challenge Democratic victories in states with mail-in ballots.
He continues to make reckless statements about Iran. In Nebraska, he said, “They could take out a city. Let ‘em take out Los Angeles and San Diego”. Trump’s words will not win hearts and minds on the war.
2006 all over again?
With less than a month to go, Democratic campaign leaders are aiming for victory in 240 House seats. They have just expanded their target list by six seats that Republicans won by 16 points or more in 2024.
America’s most popular political figure, Obama, will continue his role as the “closer-in-chief”. He will campaign for Democratic Senate candidates such as Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive Muslim candidate in Michigan, who is seeking to prove that a major industrial state, which voted for Trump in 2016 and 2024, can support a hard-left Democrat like him.
Unlike the House of Representatives, the Senate is no slam dunk for the Democrats. They may well win in Texas and Ohio, but they could lose their seats in New Hampshire and Michigan and fail to gain a seat in Maine.
This midterm feels like 2006. An unpopular president in his second term, George W. Bush, was enmeshed in forever wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and mired in a weak economy on the brink of the Global Financial Crisis.
Democrats gained 31 seats in the House and six in the Senate, giving them control of Congress. They would battle Bush for two more years. But that midterm set the stage for Obama to bring the Democrats back to the White House in 2008.
This 2026 midterm is just as much about 2028. As legendary baseballer Yogi Berra once said, “It’s déjà vu all over again.”
Bruce Wolpe, Non-resident Senior Fellow, United States Study Centre, University of Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.