Midterms

The question we face in the US today is whether a party in office which is supported by 40 percent of survey respondents can win an election. Since this is the US and the elections are for the legislature, the specific question is whether the Republican Party can retain the control of both houses in the forthcoming midterm election.

First, a comment about the 40 percent. While there are daily headlines claiming that the support for Trump is declining, in fact it has been almost perfectly stable since mid-November, at about 40 percent. It has not been shaken by anything: the Maduro kidnapping, the tariffs chaos, the Epstein disclosures. The support for his particular policies has fallen, but not his overall support. His margin of support among survey respondents remains stable at about -20 points. The margin of vote intentions of registered voters is about -10 points for the Republicans. Obviously, what these margins imply about the prospect for the midterms depends on their distribution across the House districts and across the states for the Senate. But their stability suggests that they are likely to remain the same by the time of the midterms. Hence, the question: can the Republicans retain the control of both houses with the support of 40 percent of potential voters?

Even if the true support for Putin, Erdogan, Maduro, or Orban is difficult to assess, we have seen that incumbents can win elections even when they are not supported by the majorities. How do they do it?

Here is a list of things these gentlemen could do and which some of them did:

(1) Change the electoral rules.

(2) Overturn their results when they lose elections.

(3) Attack sources of financing of the opposition.

(4) Control the media.

(5) Control the election bureaucracy.

(6) Judicially target political opponents, preventing them from running.

(7) Intimidate voters at the polls.

(8) Commit outright fraud.

Let us go over these possibilities one-by-one in the context of the US.

(1) Changing the electoral rules at the national level is difficult in the US. But even if Republicans succeed in adopting some new rules, it is difficult to think of federal legislation that would clearly favor Republicans. The Harris and Trump constituencies were almost identical in terms of income. According to exit polls following the 2024 election, Trump received 50% of the vote among the 27% of the electorate with incomes below $50,000, while Harris got 48%. They drew at 49% among the voters with incomes above $50,000. Hence, disenfranchising poor people would have no clear partisan effect.

The latest attempt of Republicans is the SAVE act, which passed in the House but not, at least yet, the Senate. This act requires voters to provide a proof of citizenship at the polls. I wonder whether the Republicans are not shooting themselves in the foot. About 21 million Americans lack documents that match their current legal names. In turn, three out of four women change names when they marry. But married women are much more likely to vote Republican than unmarried ones and I suspect that those who changed names are even more likely to do so. Hence, Republicans could be disenfranchising their own voters.

The changes of rules that can be effectuated at the state level concern districting. While there are currently legal battles about gerrymandering, I wonder again whether Republicans can be sure that it would work in their favor. Suppose Democrats have one safe district while Republicans have the rest. Now the safe Democratic is abolished, spreading the Democratic voters across other districts. If Democrats have a sufficient majority, say they enjoy a +10 points margin, they win more districts.

I tried but could not think of changes of electoral rules that would clearly favor Republicans, either at the federal or state levels.

(2) Under the Federal Contested Elections Act of 1969, a candidate can formally contest a House election by filing notice within 30 days of the result and presenting evidence. The House Administration Committee investigates and makes recommendations to the full House, which has final authority under Article I of the Constitution to judge the elections of its own members.

The question of what happens if a result of an election is contested requires a caveat on my part: I am not a specialist on US politics and even my friends who know better are not quite sure how it may work. Election results are typically declared by state authorities. They may be contested by the losers, in which case the newly elected house decides whether or not to seat them. Courts may also be involved. There seems to be no unique, clear procedure for invalidating election results. Cases in which results of elections were invalidated have been extremely rare in the recent era: the only one I could dig up is the 2018 election in the 9th District of North Carolina.

According to Politico of February 23, 2026, Democratic Attorney Generals are “preparing for the administration to potentially confiscate ballots and voting machines, strip resources from the postal service to disrupt the delivery of mail ballots, and send military members and immigration agents to polling locations to intimidate voters. They’re readying motions for temporary restraining orders to preserve election materials and remove armed forces from voting sites.” In turn, the White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson argued that the existing law gives the Department of Justice “full authority to ensure states comply with federal election laws, which mandate accurate state voter rolls.”

If this is correct, the playing field is open for lawyers and the post electoral period promises to be a mess that may linger for a long time. Is this what Republicans are betting on?

(3) As of early 2026, RNC has much more cash than DNC. Moreover, Trump’s PAC has a large stack of funds. Political contributions of oligarchs go overwhelmingly, about 80%, to Republicans. Nevertheless, Trump already tried to undermine one of the major Democratic fund-raising organizations, ActBlue. Trump’s Memorandum of April 24, 2025, entitled “Investigation into Unlawful ‘Straw Donor’ and Foreign Contributions in American Elections,” directs “the Attorney General, in consultation with the Secretary of the Treasury, to use all lawful authority, as necessary, to investigate allegations regarding the unlawful use of online fund-raising platforms to make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions or foreign contributions to political candidates and committees, and to take all appropriate actions to enforce the law.”

Lots of research shows that candidates who have more money win. The caveat, however, is that the causal effect of money on electoral results is not simple to identify: while causality may run from financial advantage to electoral victory, it may also run the other way around, namely, donors give money to likely winners, to buy future favors. There is also a controversy whether money influences the partisan choice -- voters are “impressionable” -- or only turnout. I once wrote a paper on this topic and my conclusion was that “money is more productive for challengers than for incumbents, that it matters most in close races, and that it has a significant effect in open races (those in which there is no incumbent). Yet these generalizations must be treated with caution because this is a subject in which different methods tend to generate different results.”

It may also matter that Republicans get few large contributions while Democrats get many small ones. Large contributions play an important role in elections which pit candidates who have no name recognition but may have little effect beyond it. In the end, money may help Republicans to bring their potential voters to the polls but it can be decisive only if they have a sufficient number of potential voters to bring.

(4) Trump has taken several actions to control or at least intimidate the media. Speaking at the DOJ on March 14, 2025, Trump said: “I believe that CNN and MSNBC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democratic Party. And in my opinion, they are really corrupt and they are illegal. What they do is illegal.” Since then, he threatened to sue several media outlets, several of which paid him rather than face the suits. His takeover of the CBS is complete.

Yet the effects of both the legacy and the social media on direction of voting are very small. Ever since a classical study by Paul Lazersfeld (The People’s Choice 1944), most studies have concluded that individual characteristics are far better predictors of voting behavior than any measure of media exposure. Media, however, have an effect on making some issues more salient than others, so they may affect voting preferences indirectly.

The causality issues are again difficult to unravel. Are people’s partisan postures influenced by the media or do people with already fixed partisan orientations expose themselves to the particular media? A large proportion of Americans, perhaps as much as 40 percent, do not follow any legacy media. While there is a lot of research on fake news, many people get no news, just random prompts that confirm their partisan identity.

(5) Election administration has effects on election results. An anecdote comes to mind: in Zanzibar, election officials placed polling booths next to beehives in areas expected to vote for the opposition. An old story about Ann Arbor, Michigan, is that Republican elections officials placed voting places far away from the university campus, impossible to access by public transportation. Location of the polling places, the length of lines, the possibility of early voting, the possibility of voting by mail all have some effects on turnout and, if deliberately designed, on the results. So it matters who appoints the election officials, generating advantage for the incumbents. But since the devil is in the detail, the aggregate effect is impossible to determine.

(6) Trump has attacked several of his political opponents, sometimes with measures so petty that they defy any belief that he is acting rationally. My favorite example is that Chris Krebs, a former director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, had his Global Entry withdrawn. Presidential Memorandum of April 9 was dedicated exclusively to him, as “a significant bad-faith actor.” What follows in the text is inane: “Krebs, through CISA, falsely and baselessly denied that the 2020 election was rigged and stolen, .... Abusive conduct of this sort both violates the First Amendment and erodes trust in Government, thus undermining the strength of our democracy itself.” Trumps attacked verbally or financially some individuals, some law firms, some elected representatives, several universities. His Memorandum issued on March 22, 2025 directed “the Attorney General to seek sanctions against attorneys and law firms who engage in frivolous, unreasonable, and vexatious litigation against the United States or in matters before executive department and agencies of the United States.” More ominous is perhaps the Executive Order of September 22, 2025, which designates “Antifa” it as a “domestic terrorist organization” and instructs government agencies to persecute any actions “conducted by Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa, or for which Antifa or any person claiming to act on behalf of Antifa provided material support ....” Since Antifa is not an organization, this seems like a blanket authorization to pursue political opponents.

Yet to have direct electoral consequences, Trump would have to be able to prevent some candidates from running for office, as Erdogan did in Turkey and Maduro in Venezuela. He would have to jail them or withdraw their political rights. Thus far, a House representative, the mayor of Newark, a senator from California, and New York City Comptroller were arrested by ICE; all Democrats. But the charge of sedition against Senator Mark Kelly (D, Arizona) and five other Democratic representatives fizzled in the courts.

(7) Can intimidation be effective to dissuade marginally Democratic voters from turning out to vote? At various moments, Trump or his acolytes, including Steve Bannon, have threatened to use ICE or even the military to “ensure election integrity.” There is a line of political science research that argues that voting is costly and that people vote only if they believe that the difference their vote would make overwhelms the cost. This argument is not logically coherent, for reasons that need not be discussed here, but the intuition that people who do not have strong partisan preferences would abstain from voting when they fear it may be dangerous is strong. If the polling places are surrounded by armed forces of any kind, voting against those who place them there may appear dangerous. So Democrats may face extraordinary difficulty in bringing people to the polls. I have no guess about the quantitative effects of intimidation, but they cannot be dismissed.

There are also indications that potential voters may be targeted individually. In July 2025, the IRS and ICE signed a Memorandum of Understanding that allows them to merge individual files, departing from the Section 6103 of the IRS Code, adopted in the aftermath of the Watergate scandal, which protected taxpayers’ identity. Brennan Center for Justice reported on February 5, 2026 that at least ten states handed their voter rolls to the Department of Justice. There is a large firm, Palantir, which sells platforms on which different individual files can be merged. This firm has several contracts with agencies of the government. What it all adds up to is hard to tell but it would not be surprising if the Administration had complete information about the potential voters, including their past electoral turnout, marital status, finances, criminal records, employment records, and more.

(8) There is a famous anecdote about a one-time dictator of Nicaragua, Anastasio Somoza, who said to his electoral opponent, “You won the voting but I won the counting.” Outright fraud is almost non-existent in the US. For it to happen, state authorities would have to announce Republican victories in districts previously held by Republicans but won by Democrats. Such fraud could tilt the election only if the margins are almost zero: I still cannot imagine that it could occur at a scale sufficient to overcome Democratic advantage.

With so many unknowns, overall conclusions are not possible. I cannot think of any national level legislation that would obviously help Republicans. Neither will Trump’s control or intimidation of the media. Republicans’ large financial advantage will not affect voting intentions although it may affect turnout. Trump will not be able to prevent Democratic candidates from running. Finally, if his base remains at 40 percent, fraud would have to be massive to tilt the scales. In turn, I am less sanguine about the effects of intimidation and about the election aftermath. Forced to a conclusion, I think Trump cannot do what Putin, Maduro, or Erdogan have managed to accomplish. If his base does remain at 40 percent, Republicans are likely to lose at least the House of Representatives and perhaps both Houses.

This conclusion opens another series of questions, about which I will not speculate. What will Trump do if he expects to lose? What will he do if he does lose? All I know is that Trump is not prepared to lose an election. He lost one and he continues to maintain that it was only because of fraud. On March 13, 2025, he declared at @realDonaldTrump that “No person who has inflicted the violence and terror that Kamala Harris has inflicted on this community can EVER be allowed to become President of the United States.” He is just not prepared to lose elections, any election. Still, he cannot call off the elections, or can he? He cannot override their result, or can he? Would he be followed if he tried to do either? The people around him have a lot to lose, so they may be disposed to do anything. But the violation of the Constitution would be so flagrant that they may not be followed. We live in an unprecedented time and I have learned that history is a poor guide to predict what will happen.