Betraying Democracy
Manipulating the Odds for the Midterm
Since Donald Trump regained the White House in 2024, Republicans have held a narrow majority of seats in both the U.S. House of Representatives (217 Republicans and 212 Democrats, with one Independent and five vacancies) and the Senate (53 Republicans and 47 Democrats, including two Independents who caucus with the Democrats).
Given the formidable unity of the Republican Party today, congressional Republicans have never provided much of a check and balance on President Trump’s power. They’re too intimidated by Trump’s threats to run challengers against them in Republican primaries and end their political careers.
With the U.S. Supreme Court now firmly controlled by conservatives, the federal courts don’t provide much of a check and balance either. For the past year and a half, most Democrats have believed that their best chance of stopping Trump in the 2026 midterms would be by winning a majority in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Now that may be changing. President Trump’s sharply declining popularity (below 40 percent approval in the latest national polls) and the unpopularity of his policies on the economy and the war in Iran may change those odds and end up hurting Republicans more in the Senate than in the House.
Democrats are beginning to dream about the 2026 midterm looking like the 2006 midterm, which was also held under an unpopular Republican President (George W. Bush). Bush’s job approval rating in 2006 was about the same as Trump’s is today (38 percent). And the war in Iraq was about as unpopular as the war in Iran is today. In the 2006 midterm, Democrats gained six seats in the Senate and 31 seats in the House of Representatives, ending Republican control of both chambers. 2006 gave Democrats their first House majority in twelve years.
I have a keen memory of the 2006 midterm election. Democrats won on a huge wave of antiwar sentiment. I was working with the CNN political unit, which won an Emmy for its coverage on election night. The genius behind the Democrats’ victory was Rep. Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.), chairman of the [House] Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Emanuel went on to become President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, then served two terms as Mayor of Chicago and later, President Joe Biden’s ambassador to Japan. The chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee for the 2026 election is Rep. Suzan DelBene (WA-1). Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) is chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee for the 2026 election. Former chairman Emanuel, who made his national reputation in the 2006 midterm, is reported to be considering a run for President in 2028. Emanuel’s political savvy could easily match that of anyone in Trump’s army.
Mindful of the similarities between the 2006 and 2026 midterms, J.B. Poersch, who runs the Senate [Democratic] Majority PAC, said, ``There’s a very unpopular President, there’s war on, and it’s a really hard Senate map.’’ Democrats need to hold all their Senate seats, including seats in Georgia and Michigan, which were Trump states in 2024. Republicans need to hold only one Kamala Harris state (Maine). Democrats will also need to take four currently Republican seats. It won’t be easy. But it wasn’t easy for Democrats to flip Bush states in 2006 either.
You would expect Republicans to be more vulnerable in the House where their majority is only five seats. But President Trump is resorting to some unusual tactics to keep the House Republican majority. He certainly knows that if Democrats control the House, they will do everything possible to sink his agenda and will almost certainly impeach him (as they did in 2019 and 2021). Trump has taken the unprecedented step of pressuring a strong Trump state (Texas) to redraw congressional district boundaries in the middle of the decade in order to create more Republican-friendly congressional districts. Democrats have been fighting back in blue states by creating more Democratic districts in their own territory, like California.
There’s a reason why mid-decade redistricting may work for Republicans. 23 states have Republican ``trifecta’’ governments (Republican majorities in both legislative chambers and a Republican governor). Democrats have only 16 trifectas, including Virginia. In Virginia, Democrats fought back by putting a redistricted congressional map on the ballot in a special statewide referendum, where it passed narrowly. The result would have reduced the number of Republican-inclined congressional districts from five to one. But a state court nullified the vote because it failed to follow the mandated procedure for amending the state constitution.
Some out-of-state Republicans are even trying to pass a ``Make D.C. Square Again’’ Act that would return heavily Democratic areas in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., to the District of Columbia, which ceded those areas to Virginia in 1846. It seems that all’s fair in the redistricting wars.
Since the Supreme Court recently handed down a decision outlawing racial redistricting, several strongly Republican southern states are proposing to create new congressional district lines more favorable to Republicans (i.e., districts with large southern white majorities).
President Trump seems determined to do everything possible to protect his political advantage. Including making certain that Congress remains under his control. But that’s not the way democracy is supposed to work. In a democracy, the voters choose their representatives. Redistricting allows representatives to choose their voters. As Virginia’s new Democratic governor said, ``My focus as governor will be on ensuring that all voters have the information necessary to make their voices heard this November in the midterm elections because in those elections we – the voters – will have the final say.’’ Partisan redistricting is a way of rigging the system so that the outcome is assured.
President Trump is trying the rig the system to ensure Republican majorities. Democrats are saying, ``If Republicans want to play that game, we can play it, too.’’ Imagine a system in which all congressional districts are one-party districts. The outcome of every election would be predetermined and democracy would be a joke. Republicans could have won the 2006 midterms and the Iraq war could have gone on for years, public opinion be damned. The only changes would be registered in relatively low turnout party primaries, which typically pull the parties to the extremes.
There’s a reason why Senate elections may be more responsive to public opinion than House elections: Senate elections get more media coverage. Most House races are seen as ``local.’’ Incumbents tend to be familiar local figures; they march in parades and go to weddings and funerals; they do favors for constituents; voters see them as ``our guy (or gal)’’ in Washington. Challengers are typically invisible, and people don’t vote for somebody they’ve never heard of and know nothing about. Senate elections are more often driven by national issues. And have televised debates.
Typically over 90 percent of House incumbents get re-elected (97 percent in 2024, 94 percent in 2006) Senate re-election rates are slightly smaller (88 percent re-elected in 2024, 79 percent re-elected in 2006). The ``blue wave’’ in 2006 brought a net Democratic gain of 31 seats in the House and six Senate seats. The big news coming out of the 2006 election was that the majority party in both chambers shifted from Republican to Democratic – an outcome that would thrill Democrats (and enrage President Trump) this year.
The combination of an inconclusive war, high energy prices, a shaky economy and an unpopular President should produce a heavy turnout of angry voters this year, with their anger focused on the President’s party. That’s the formula for another ``blue wave’’ like the one in 2006. The question for 2026 is whether Trump can use his army of followers and their mastery of the legal rules and procedures to prevent that from happening – and whether voters would accept an outcome as fair if it fails to register their anger.