2026 Midterm Analysis

Republicans face a reckoning, but will it be enough?

Donald Trump’s second term has been a typhoon of chaos and destruction, and as a result Republicans face a steep uphill battle in the 2026 Midterms. Hoping to limit Democratic turnout, the party has turned to disenfranchise voters through mid-decade redistricting, which has prompted the Democrats to respond in kind. With all this chaos, and anti-democratic backsliding what are the actual prospects for Democrats and Republicans this November?

Constraints

Much has been made over the prospect of Trump attempting to cancel or interfere with the 2026 midterms, mainly because of the President’s own official acts. Smarter people than I have written and spoken about this already, and the bottom line is: the President and Congress are very limited in their ability to restrict voting. This isn’t about guardrails, or political norms, or even the law. Its about constraints, the practical limitations of their power. Right off the bat, I’m going to dismiss the threat of Trump “cancelling the elections” out of hand. That power does not exist outside of people’s imaginations.

For Trump to do anything to even interdict voters would require the cooperation of over a million election workers at every level of government, across ~95,000 polling locations, and that doesn’t include the 48 million people voting by mail. There are simply not enough troops, ICE agents, and compliant cops in the country to realistically stop those voters. If the President had that power, he would have used it in last year’s elections.

So with the White House unable to just seize power on election day, they’re focusing their energy on two fronts: mid-decade redistricting and federalizing elections via the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE) America Act. If passed, the SAVE act would require all voters to present two forms of photo identification like a drivers license, birth certificate, and/or a valid passport. At the moment the bill faces constant threats of filibuster from Democrats, and Trump’s demands to remove the filibuster have thus far been ignored by Senate Majority Leader John Thune. If it did pass, it would face immediate legal challenges, but if upheld, it would probably backfire on Republicans. A 2021 YouGov poll showed that 41% of Democrats have a valid passport, compared to only 38% of Republicans and 37% of independents. Thus the SAVE Act would restrict voting mostly to Republicans and Independents.

Beyond direct interference in the voting process are state-level Republicans’ efforts to redraw Congressional Districts to favor them in House and statehouse races. Dem-controlled legislatures are now seeking to institute their own gerrymandered maps. Further, even if Democrats don’t pass these maps, any new maps by Republicans could actually create more vulnerable Republican house districts than those for Democrats. Often called a “Dummymander,” this is a phenomenon in which Republicans turn one or more very safe districts with a 10 point or greater partisan advantage, into multiple districts with a 5 point or fewer such advantage. Under typical elections, this wouldn’t be a problem, but in a wave election year like what we saw in 2018, 2006, etc. these new maps effectively cost the Republicans more seats overall.

The only real safeguard against Republican gerrymandering left was the Voting Rights Act, which restricts racial gerrymandering, allowing African Americans in the South to be represented at all. The court had previously expanded the powers of the VRA to be more proportional, has with the Louisiana v. Callais decision curtailed that power. Within hours Louisiana threw out their existing maps while people were voting in primary elections, Alabama, and Tennessee have followed suit, and at time of writing South Carolina and Mississippi are organizing similar efforts. However, there has been pushback to gerrymandering in Indiana, Georgia, Florida, and Kentucky, as those states’ Republican officials have voiced concern about weakening their present advantages.

There are likely to be numerous court cases and redistricting efforts as we approach the election, but for me, the more immediate risk to the election are efforts by state-level Republicans to reduce balloting. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton already used existing law to execute a last minute change in voting hours in his state’s primary, and I have no doubt that he will try to do the same in the general election to gain the upper hand. We should also expect Republicans to employ their tried and true method of purging voter rolls and limiting balloting locations in major cities to depress Democratic turnout. These methods are far greater threats to Democratic prospects in Red States than gerrymandering or federal meddling.

Odds

Donald Trump is polling at around 35%, which is around his historic floor. While that’s good for Democratic chances, Trump’s popularity is not a one-to-one metric for how House and Senate Republicans will preform this Fall. On Election Day 2018, Gallup had Donald Trump’s approval at 38%. Republicans in the House won 44.8% of the vote, and 45.7% of the seats. In the Senate they only won 38.7% of the popular vote, but picked up 2 seats. In the House, the results represented a 6 point reversal from 2016. Today, Trump’s net approvals are at -26 points nationally, while Dems have a generic ballot advantage of only +7. When we examine the 2025 off-year elections, Democrats experienced a similar 6 point swing in Virginia from 2024, and a 5 point swing in New Jersey. This all suggests a similar midterm result as 2018, but the situation is radically different.

While Democratic performance in 2025 may be similar as to 2018, this is unlikely to be the case come Fall 2026 due to prevailing economic headwinds. The AI Bubble has likely already popped, now that banks are no longer lending money to build new datacenters, and AI companies now are imposing usage caps. With the strain on the economy imposed by the global oil and gas shock from the closing of the Strait of Hormuz, the likelihood of a crash has only grown. The loss of Gulf Oil flows is driving up the price of everything, from fertilizer, to helium, to jet fuel, to aluminum. So, if Trump tries to close the US off from global oil markets much as Nixon did in 1973, it is unlikely to substantively improve the economic outlook, or Republican chances at the polls.

So, rather than a repeat of 2018 or 2006 with a 6 point swing and an 8 point margin of victory for the Dems, but something closer to the 10-12 point margin of victory of 2008 or 1932. Depending on the timing of the coming economic crisis, it could be much worse for Republicans. However, that will require not only Democrats to be atypically well motivated to turnout and vote in the midterms, but atypically low turnout from Republicans.

Donald Trump’s floor tends to be around 35% of the electorate (margin of error +/- 3 points). State-by-state breakdowns of Trump’s approvals, suggests that Dems could displace Republicans in otherwise ruby Red states like Mississippi, while the farm belt looks very much in play. Farm states are heavily dependent on international supply chains, and because their economies are far more homogenized than those of urbanized blue states, a disruption to agriculture would mean far greater economic pain. However, given his current polling numbers, and Democratic performance thus far, its fair to say that the Republican base hasn’t broken yet.

Risk

The risk is not that Trump steal the election for Republicans. The risk is that Trump and the Republicans manipulate the results enough to avoid impeachment and removal in 2027.

Donald Trump cannot stop the elections from happening, and has likely done more to hurt Republican chances by pushing for mid-decadal gerrymandering. He can’t simply seize power, nor does he have the troops to stop elections in every competitive district. But he doesn’t need to. Trump’s first goal is not to govern, its to remain in power. To do that he only needs to deny Democrats a Supermajority in the Senate.

That’s why he’s made it clear any Republican that defies him on any issue will face a primary challenge. He does not care if his challenger wins or loses, or if it costs him the majority, he just wants to maintain control over the Republican party.

Its already a tall order for Dems to win by the margins required to even get close to a Senate supermajority, even if there are a handful of Republicans who secretly want Trump and/or Vance gone. It wouldn’t take much to deny Democrats a few seats in swing states to make removal from office politically impossible.

Trump also doesn’t care if he loses more moderate Republicans in swing-districts, because those are people more likely to defy him. His strategy within the Republican party since 2016 has been to hollow out the organization until there are no threats to him left. In effect, there isn’t much of the Republican party left as an organization, having been replaced almost entirely by MAGA and the Trump cult of personality.

At time of writing, the MAGA movement has not abandoned Trump. He’s still polling well above his 32 point floor after J6. But will they? I wouldn’t hold my breath. These voters have a long history of voting against their own economic self-interest for the sake of right wing ideology. What’s different about 2026 is that opposition to Trump and the Republicans is atypically unified, which will be good for Democrats come November. But unless there’s a 10+ point drop in support from the Republican party’s diehards comparable to what George W. Bush experienced after the Crash of 2008, we’re going to be stuck with this White House until 2029.