With about a week to go until the 3 November midterm elections in the US, the question is not whether the Republicans will lose, but by how much. Will the Democrats enjoy a ‘blue wave’ or a ‘blue trickle’? Republicans are at risk of losing majority control of not only the House of Representatives but also the Senate and multiple state governorships.
The situation looks dire for the Republicans. Democrats lead the national ballot by 11 percentage points, according to a recent New York Times poll. Democratic Party enthusiasm is high, and President Trump’s approval rating is at a record low. If the current RealClearPolitics average of polls materialises, the Democrats will take the Senate by a 52 to 48 margin. They may flip Senate seats in states that Trump carried in prior elections, including Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas.
If there is one state that sums up how dreadful things are going for Trump and the Republicans, it’s Texas. A conservative stronghold, Texas hasn’t elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1988. But now James Talarico – a young-looking state lawmaker with a history of espousing uber-woke views – is leading in the polls.
The stakes are high. Democratic control of both the House and the Senate will most certainly lead to investigations of the Republicans, and possibly impeachment proceedings against Trump and members of his cabinet. Recall how, after the Democrats won control of the House of Representatives in the 2018 midterms (during Trump’s first term), they went crazy with false accusations of Trump’s collusion with Russia. Be prepared for more allegations like Russiagate, if not worse. Beyond investigations and impeachment, Democrats will be able to stymie Trump during his final two years in the White House, perhaps rendering him a lame duck. We can expect their agenda to include trying to dismantle immigration enforcement, stop the production of fossil fuels and block scrutiny of potential welfare fraud in Democratic states. And of course, more demonisation of Israel.
It’s a historical truism in American politics that the party in power almost always loses ground in the midterm elections. This is especially the case if the president is unpopular – and Trump is very unpopular. Only 39 per cent of voters approve of his job performance, according to the RealClearPolitics average. The New York Times, which finds Trump’s approval at 34 per cent among registered voters, says that ‘Mr Trump has the lowest approval rating for any president before a midterm election since Harry Truman and the Democrats were routed in 1946 at the dawn of modern polling.’
When elected president in 2024, Trump won support from independents, as well as key demographic groups such as black, Hispanic and younger Americans. But over the past two years, Trump has been squandering, rather than consolidating, that support. Trump is even losing his once-bedrock backing from working-class voters. Trump’s approval with white voters without a college degree is now at 44 per cent, down from 66 per cent in the 2024 election.
A key issue pushing Trump’s approval score down is the economy. Voters are unhappy with inflation driving up prices, especially petrol prices at the pump. The latest rate of 3.7 per cent in September doesn’t sound that high, but Trump was elected to get inflation under control, and it’s now worse than the level he inherited from Joe Biden.
Furthermore, wages have not been able to keep up with the rising cost of living. Voters blame Trump and his policy choices for rising prices and the economy. Both his haphazard tariffs (blue-collar workers disapprove of tariffs by a 22 per cent margin) and long-running war on Iran (which many have tired of) have directly led to higher prices.
Trump’s erratic behaviour and pet projects are not helping him with voters, either. Trump seems more preoccupied with building the White House ballroom and the United States Triumphal Arch (nicknamed the Arc de Trump) than with the major issues of the day. He engages in bizarre stunts, like signing an executive order to rename Lake Ontario as ‘Lake America’. All of these quirky obsessions lead working people to think Trump is not really focused on their concerns.
Trump also suffers from a perception among some voters that he and people around him are corrupt. Indeed, corruption is something of a sleeper issue in these midterms, but it should receive more attention. A recent Fox News poll found that 88 per cent of voters were concerned about ‘corruption in government’, making it their No1 issue in this election, ahead of inflation, gas prices and the war in Iran. Trump’s ambassador to Greece recently resigned after accusations of soliciting $100,000 from a donor. Trump’s son, Donald Jr, has come under fire for allowing a Russian businessman to pay for his post-wedding party in the Bahamas. Trump himself stands accused by Democrats of grifting from the White House, citing the more than $600million he made from a crypto meme coin last year. ‘Most Americans say President Trump has prioritised his personal financial interests and the interests of people close to him since taking office again in 2025’, says AP-NORC, based on its recent survey. ‘Far fewer say he has prioritised the country as a whole or people like them.’
So while the Republicans were always going to have trouble in these midterms, Trump’s policies, behaviour and perceived corruption have put them in an even deeper hole. On top of that, many of his interventions in the elections have backfired.
The main reason Republicans are trailing in the Texas Senate race is that Trump pushed for Ken Paxton, the scandal-plagued attorney general and terrible campaigner, to replace incumbent Republican John Cornyn. There’s little doubt that if Cornyn were running for re-election, he would defeat James Talarico. Similarly, Trump endorsed Darline Graham to run for the South Carolina Senate seat occupied for many years by her deceased brother, Lindsey. Having no political experience, Darline is struggling to defeat her Democratic opponent in a state that is traditionally Republican red.
In recent weeks, Trump has hit the campaign trail, holding rallies across the country. But it’s not clear his stump speeches are helping. He has taken to boasting that everything is going great, from the economy to the Iran war. ‘I give us an A+ on the government, on economics, on everything’, he said to reporters at the White House the other day. His administration does have accomplishments to tout, but telling voters that they are imagining their cost-of-living difficulties is hardly a winning strategy. At his rallies, Trump says, ‘I’m on the ballot’, as if to motivate his base. The problem is that ‘Trump is on the ballot’ is the Democrats’ main message to their voters as well.
Despite the challenges facing Republicans in a midterm year, it’s not as if they don’t have potential arguments they could deploy against the Democrats, if they were adept. Their opponents are vulnerable on a number of fronts.
Democrats themselves are unpopular, especially among independents, and their national brand is still awful. An NBC poll found that the Democratic brand is perceived more negatively than the Republican Party. Even US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is viewed less negatively than the Democrats, despite ICE agents having now killed three US citizens during Trump’s second term.
Democrats don’t present a positive alternative, relying heavily on simple anti-Trumpism. They have been chirping a lot about ‘affordability’, but blaming ‘billionaires’ and ‘the Epstein class’ for cost-of-living pressures is just empty rhetoric. Worse still, their green-energy policies will only send prices higher and exacerbate any affordability problem. With Democrats doubling down on woke social policies and the rising prominence of the Democratic Socialists of America within their party, they appear even more extreme than when they lost the 2024 election. All that said, Trump and the Republicans have not been strong and clear in prosecuting a case against the Democrats in this election cycle.
To understand the Democrats’ vulnerabilities, consider two swing states where Republicans have a chance of winning – Michigan and Minnesota. In both states, the Democratic candidate is woke and flawed. Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrats’ candidate in Michigan, straddles both wings of the Islamo-left alliance. Peggy Flanagan, their candidate in Minnesota, is the lieutenant governor who appears to have let welfare fraud run riot in the state. Against these two, the Republican candidates – Mike Rogers in Michigan and Michele Tafoya in Minnesota – present themselves as reasonable normies. But what’s also interesting, and a reason for these Republicans’ success so far, is that both are distancing themselves from Trump. In a campaign ad, Rogers calls to ‘end this tariff war now’, while holding a Canadian beer. Tafoya has criticised deportation operations in Minnesota and calls for an end to the war with Iran.
Of course, it’s possible that the blue wave won’t actually emerge next week, and Republicans might stave off a disaster. They certainly have an advantage in terms of financial resources, and the political map is favourable to them, with most of the races in states that Trump won in 2024. In elections in 2016 and since, polls have typically understated support for the GOP. Right now, many of the Democrats’ leads in the Senate are within a margin of error.
In our divided and partisan era, where many Democrats and Republicans could never contemplate voting for the other side, it’s harder to imagine ‘wave’ elections. In such conditions, the edge will go to the party that turns out more of its supporters – something that’s harder to do in a midterm year than in a presidential election year. That’s why Trump’s rallies are mainly in red states, trying to boost Republican turnout at the polls. The fact that he’s now effectively promising bribes – like $5,000 to every adult if the Republicans maintain their congressional majority – shows just how desperate he must be feeling.
If the Republicans defy the polls and hold off the worst, we can expect Trump to claim the credit. But if the Democrats give them a beating, don’t hold your breath waiting for Trump to own up and take the blame. Whether Republicans win or lose, the sad truth is that Trump has not delivered on his promises for the working people who gave him a second term. He had an opportunity to solidify broad public support for his administration and party, and the midterms may be further evidence that he has blown it.
Sean Collins is a writer based in New York. Visit his blog, The American Situation.