On the menu today: The last of summer is fading and autumn is here; time only moves forward, unless you’re the University of Michigan Wolverines, because then it can go backwards for one second. Labor Day traditionally marks the start of the real campaign season, and voters who haven’t paid attention all year start to tune in. And rest assured, Republicans, the president is locked in. On Sunday evening, President Trump proposed renaming the state of New Mexico “New America.” No doubt, one way to ensure that the prediction that “Republicans will do badly in New Mexico” will not come true is to rename the Land of Enchantment. As for the rest of the midterm landscape, read on.
Welcome to Midterm Season
Democrats have no doubt hindered their chances at a sweeping victory in the 2026 midterms by nominating some dingbats. (This isn’t even counting Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who doesn’t look as doomed as the conventional wisdom in the right-of-center media world wants to believe.)
- In Michigan’s seventh district, a swing district centered around Lansing, Democrats probably wish that they hadn’t nominated William Lawrence, who tweeted at former West Virginia Democrat Senator Joe Manchin “hurry up and die,” wanted to “f***” the nuclear family, to abolish the U.S. Senate, and promote “a world of free and open migration.” Republican Representative Tom Barrett gets the privilege of taking on Lawrence.
- In Iowa’s third district, covering the south-central part of the state, the Democrats have nominated Sarah Trone Garriott, the unusual kind of Lutheran minister whose first wedding she officiated as an intern pastor was for a pair of Satanists. Incumbent Republican Zach Nunn, a former combat aviator with the U.S. Air Force, has never done any work for a Satanist wedding.
- In Pennsylvania’s eighth district, Democratic nominee Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti is objecting to GOP ads that feature a photo of her at a 2025 Pride flag raising alongside a drag queen who performs under the name “Chlamydia Berns.” Incumbent Republican Rob Bresnahan touts his union endorsements, and as of this writing, none of the union leaders have a stage name that includes an STD.
- In Arizona’s sixth district, Democratic nominee JoAnna Mendoza admitted she wrongfully claimed an education-related property tax credit for years and has also faced questions about “sexually suggestive and witchcraft-focused social media accounts she has followed online, her weekslong marriage to a man in Syria, and a personal history that includes a DUI arrest in 2012.” By contrast, incumbent Republican Juan Ciscomani has six kids; no doubt he serves in Congress just to get some peace and quiet.
Then there are the nutjobs who are certain to win in safe blue seats. In New Jersey’s twelfth district, there’s Adam Hamawy, the former employee of an al-Qaeda front organization. Chris Rabb, the Democratic nominee in Pennsylvania’s third district, contended the Bondi Beach, Australia, attack on Jews was a false flag by “Zionists.” In Colorado’s first district, Melat Kiros declined to call a deadly Boulder firebombing of a Jewish community rally antisemitic and called the 9/11 attacks “Inevitable in the sense that we destabilized a lot of the Middle East.”
Right about now, many Democrats are groaning and asking their candidates, “Why can’t you just be normal?”
But Republicans are counting on Democratic candidates’ flaws to overcome an overall political environment that is terrible for GOP incumbents. President Trump’s job approval has consistently been between 39 and 43 percent since the start of the year.
When the president’s approval rating is that low, he almost always loses control of Congress. Sometimes the states that are up in the senatorial elections alter that equation a bit; back in 2018, Trump’s job approval rating was around 43 percent, and Republicans picked up two seats in the U.S. Senate, while Democrats picked up 41 seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and picked up seven governorships and an additional 308 state legislative seats across the country. But by and large, if only about four out of every ten people think the president is doing a good job, his party suffers in the midterms and finds it just about impossible to retain legislative majorities.
Among people who voted for Trump in 2024, you can find Americans who are frustrated by the decision to launch military action against Iran, by gas prices, by the overall cost of living, by a sense that not everything connected to Jeffrey Epstein has been released, by the consequences of tariffs and a trade war with Canada, and more.
I suspect that when the president spends a considerable amount of time and energy discussing the Kennedy Center, the White House ballroom, the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, his planned victory arch, etc., there is, if nothing else, considerable opportunity cost. Most Americans didn’t vote for Trump to focus on issues like this, they will probably never see most of these projects, and don’t particularly care about them. A July poll by the Washington Post found that roughly two-thirds of Americans described themselves as “dissatisfied” or “upset” about “new ballroom at the White House, painting the national mall’s reflecting pool, and construction of a triumphal arch in Northern Virginia.” Only 12 percent characterized themselves as “enthusiastic” about the projects.
Some individuals still insist that Trump is conducting an elaborate ruse, getting everyone else to “wast[e] their time on these side quests while he gets the real work done.” I find that argument to be specious nonsense, but even if that were the case, the public does not perceive Trump as getting the real work done, which is rather important priority heading into a midterm election. If the plan is to fool the public into believing the president wastes too much time on egomaniacal projects like minting a gold coin with his face on them, the plan is working a little too well.
(Over at RealClearPolitics, Frank Miele speculates that on some level, Trump might want a Democratic enemy to denounce and blame for the final two years of his presidency. “If they actually regain control of Congress, the threat of their socialist policies will loom large. Trump can reclaim his mantle as the protector of American ideals and traditions, and use his veto pen as a mighty sword to hold off Democrats’ attempts to dismantle the Electoral College and radically alter the Supreme Court.” If you prefer to have scapegoats to blame and enemies to rail against, rather that allies in the legislature to enact laws, you are, as I contended last month, semi-retired from the presidency.)
We will see what happens in November. The mid-decade redistricting effort will no doubt save some Republican seats in the U.S. House; my back-of-the-envelope math suggests the GOP heads into this midterm with eight more friendly seats than in 2024. But that assumes that for five newly drawn districts in Texas, Latinos who voted for Trump in 2024 will want to vote for Republican candidates this year. An August poll found Trump’s approval rating among Texas Latinos at 40 percent, with 48 percent strongly disapproving.
Usually, perceptions of the president have less of an effect on gubernatorial and state legislative elections. There are 36 governorships up in November, and about a dozen are genuinely competitive. Republicans have a good shot at winning the governor’s mansion back from Democrats in Kansas with Ty Masterson, keeping it in Ohio with Vivek Ramaswamy, reelecting Joe Lombardo in Nevada, and reelecting Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire. In Georgia, Republican billionaire Rick Jackson will face former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and that race looks surprisingly close. (Incumbent Republican Brian Kemp, who is term-limited, has a 62 percent approval rating.)
In Wisconsin, Republican Tom Tiffany doesn’t have Francesca Hong to kick around anymore, and he’s narrowly trailing David Crowley.
But the outlook is tougher for some of the other open seat races. In Michigan, Republican John James is consistently trailing Democrat Jocelyn Benson. In Iowa, Zach Lahn doesn’t look like a safe bet against Democrat Rob Sand. In Arizona, incumbent Democrat Katie Hobbs appears set to cruise to victory against the GOP’s Andy Biggs. In Colorado, no one has even bothered to conduct a survey; Richard Marx is on course to be every bit the disaster that his primary rival predicted, and the GOP effectively conceded the gubernatorial race to State Attorney General Phil Weiser. In Minnesota, never an easy state for the GOP, the lone poll since the primary puts Senator Amy Klobuchar at 52 percent and Republican Lisa Demuth at 36 percent.
If Republicans have the bad midterm election that many project, can we finally drop the argument that our octogenarian president is playing some ingenious twelve-level chess that only he can perceive?
Trump has always been an intensely divisive figure, and the country preferred him two out of the past three times in large part because enough voters in enough states found the alternative intolerable. Trump chose to interpret his election victory as a far-reaching mandate for every whim he’s ever felt.
“Campaign season” really turns into “voting season” quickly.
In Minnesota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Virginia, early voting starts September 19, less than two weeks from now. By October 8, one month from now, nine more states will have started early voting: Montana, Nebraska, California, Ohio, Indiana, New Mexico, Wyoming, and Arizona. In 2022, nearly half of all voters either cast their ballots early or by mail.
ADDENDUM: Over in the Washington Post, a look at the murky future of Pennsylvania Democratic Senator John Fetterman. The fact that many Pennsylvania Democrats now despise him and many Pennsylvania Republicans now adore him is a sad demonstration that political perceptions of elected officials are shaped by media coverage and not how they actually vote:
The party-switching idea doesn’t make much sense, as long as Fetterman keeps voting with the Democratic position 78 percent of the time. The inversion of the usual partisan perceptions of Fetterman are a depressing demonstration that voters don’t pay much attention to a senator’s overall voting record; if you’re a pro-Israel senator who appears on Fox News a lot, that’s enough make many Democrats conclude you might as well be with the other guys. And if you “Hang Out with Sean Hannity” — that’s really the name of the podcast — Republicans will shrug off your voting against their position roughly four out of every five times.