My thoughts on the 2026 midterms...

 

President Donald Trump. Official portrait. 

As you are almost certainly aware, the 2026 midterms are next week in the United States. Unlike many previous elections, I am having a very hard time predicting what will happen. As I have written several times this year, polling is unreliable at best and deliberately misleading at worst. We had four cases of polling firms just making things up for "social experiments" and once that happens, polling, which has already been wrong for years now, loses all credibility. 

Without the advantage of polling, you kind of have to use your brain to try and figure out which side is going to win. The media narrative is that the Republicans are going to get wiped out, and that's what the unreliable polling says. But is that what is going to happen? 

To be fair, I do think that the Democrats do have some legit advantages and I do think it's worth it to go through them. But I also think the Republicans have some as well. And I think the narrative that the GOP is going to lose both the House and the Senate by wide margins is unlikely. 

So what are the Democrats advantages?

1. President Trump is, supposedly, unpopular. Trump's polling is underwater and I think he lost quite a bit of support because of the Iran conflict. How relevant this is, is an open question, but Democrats are going to argue that Trump will bring his own party down. I do think that the GOP's chances of holding onto both houses would be higher if the Iran War hadn't happened. How unpopular Trump actually is, is also an open question due to the aforementioned terrible polling issues. Historically, polling has always underestimated President Trump and his party during his era. 

2. Historically, the President's party ends up taking losses during midterms. This is as close to a rule as you can get when it comes to US politics and it would be surprising if that was not the case. 

3. Candidate quality is a problem for Republicans. This is entirely about Vivek Ramaswamy, who is one of the worst candidates the Republican Party has ever put up and he's putting a safe Republican state, Ohio, into play for the Democrats as well as making a safe senate seat into play. Ramaswamy would be a bad candidate normally, but he's emblematic of all the problems the United States has right now. 

4. The economy is not working for a lot of people. More on this in the GOP section though. 

5.  Gas prices are undeniably high. People are angry about this and they may blame President Trump and his party for this. 

6. Roy Cooper is almost certainly going to win in North Carolina as he is a very good candidate. He's a popular ex-Governor and there really isn't a scenario where he loses outside of a Red Wave year. He narrows the path that Republicans have to keep the Senate, and he does it in a swing state that has trended Republican. 

But I do think that the Republicans have some major advantages as well.

1. The Democrats are even more unpopular than President Trump. Indeed, they have never recovered after 2024 and people still remember they are the party that opened the borders and support children changing genders. 

2. The Republicans won the redistricting war. The redistricting efforts led to between 6 and 12 seats that are now fairly safe for Republicans, which means the Democrats path to win the House is a lot narrower. Indeed, most of the Democratic House seats in the South have been eliminated. There is a small chance that it could backfire on Republicans, but still, it seems unlikely that this isn't a huge advantage for the GOP. 

3. The DSA is a big problem for the Democrats on multiple fronts. In places like Wisconsin where the DSA candidate lost (in embarrassing fashion due to the fake polling), DSA supporters are demoralized and may not show up. I live in Wisconsin and I see almost zero enthusiasm for David Crowley. 

But in places where the DSA candidate won? It's scaring the normies. Folks don't like to see people like El-Sayed in Michigan and I think a lot of folks are going to turn out against them. The Democrats are scarier than the Republicans, for sure, and it may drag down the party as a whole. 

4. Democrats don't have an animating issue in 2026. There's not Black Lives Matter to turn out black voters. There's no real fear of Trump anymore given that he will be gone in two years no matter what. The things that are animating people, like the Palestine issue or AI Data Centers, are pretty much ignored by both parties. Generally speaking you need an animating issue to turn out low propensity voters. I do think that Republican voters are still animated by Trump and his pet issues, though at least some of them dropped out due to Iran. 

5. Democrats are broke. The Republicans absolutely had a massive money advantage while the national Democratic Party was broke. Indeed, there have been reports of the Democrats waving the white flag in certain House districts. They have been canceling ad orders to better use what resources they have left. This is also linked to the fact that USAID was defunded, so that limits how much money they can raise. 

6. The Trump Administration is being very aggressive against voter fraud and other shenanigans. This has been a major factor in previous elections, Democrats could get away with things if they weren't being watched. But now they are being watched. 

7. The economy is working for the people most likely to vote. This probably sounds insane if you are Generation Z or a Millennial, but Gen X, Boomers and the few remaining Silents are doing great right now. The stock market is high, home prices are high, and the complaints young people are having about H1B visas, HR never calling folks back and high housing costs, aren't really relevant for them. I think these generations are fine with how things are going and they will show up for the GOP on election day. 

I would also say that this advantage with older voters limits the damage people like Nick Fuentes and other disgruntled "Republicans" angry about Iran can do. Their audience is almost entirely made up of people that are unlikely to vote anyways. Folks talking about "punishing" the GOP weren't likely to vote anyways. 

So, with all that being said, what do I think will happen? Well, I think we can eliminate a Blue or Red Wave style election. Redistricting alone means that the chances of getting a huge win is a long shot for Democrats. And a midterm election is not the time for the Republicans to pick up major seats. 

That leaves three real outcomes, a Blue trickle where the Democrats pick up the House and Senate but by slim margins. The 2nd outcome is a minor Blue victory where they pick up the House or the Senate, not both. The third option is that the Republicans keep both houses, probably by a slim margin. 

Which of these do I see as most likely? I would say the most likely outcome is the split where the Republicans keep the Senate and the Democrats gain the house by a slim margin. The opposite outcome, where the Dems win the Senate, seems impossible given the advantages the Republicans have in the Senate. The other two outcomes, the Blue Trickle or the GOP hold seem less likely but are at least possible. 

Still, I wouldn't want to put money on much this year, if I was the kind of person to bet on politics. With polling in the state it's in, my predictions are based on vibes and not data (except for the GOP redistricting wins). Any outcome is possible, outside of a true wave election.