Midterm elections are generally not kind to the sitting president’s party, particularly in that president’s first term. Donald Trump saw Republicans lose 41 seats in the House of Representatives in 2018. Barack Obama fared worse in 2010. His Democrats lost 69 congressional seats, 63 in the House and six more in the Senate. However, the 2026 midterms could prove to be an outlier.
A divided, directionless, and virtually leaderless Democratic Party grapples with abysmal approval ratings, and the American people are, for the most part, rallying behind President Trump’s illegal alien crackdown. Left-wing talking heads are already searching for narratives they can use to minimize or deflect from a possible midterm elections disaster. The one upon which they appear to have settled – at least for the time being – may leave Trump’s MAGA movement unsure whether it should be outraged or amused.
A New Trump Conspiracy Theory Gathers Speed
The left is so predictable in many ways, one of which is the collective use of the same talking point. So many times, one can flick through the TV news channels and scan the papers to read and hear the same observations or claims suddenly being made by every left-wing journalist, talk-show host, and political commentator. It’s been happening again, of late. What is the latest spin du jour being parroted by the usual anti-Trumpers? That the president will cancel the 2026 midterms or Republicans will rig them to ensure they retain control of Congress.
The chatter is already swirling. Among the chatterers are veteran Democratic campaign operative James Carville, CNN rejects Jim Acosta and Angela Rye, former MSNBC hosts Tiffany Cross and Joy Reid, podcaster Charlamagne tha God, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Each of them has, within the past days or weeks, expressed concerns that, one way or another, the president and his congressional allies will play dirty to come out on top in the 2026 midterms.
Not everyone mentioned has gone off the deep end into nightmarish fantasies. Jeffries, for example, is talking about possible Republican-led redistricting efforts in Texas. Still, he did say the Texas GOP was trying “to go forward with a gerrymandered map designed to rig the congressional elections in the midterms in 2026.”
Whenever Republicans in any state redraw congressional district maps, it’s “gerrymandering” and cheating. When Democrats do the same – as they do – it’s merely an effort to ensure the state’s residents are more fairly represented. It is strange that this is always the case.
Everyone Got the 2026 Midterms Memo
At the other end of the rationality scale is Carville – once known as the Ragin’ Cajun but now closer to Stark Ravin’ Cajun. The long-time Clintonista sat down for a chat with another cable news outcast, Chris Cuomo, on July 9. He posited that Trump’s baby, the “big, beautiful bill” (BBB), would become so devastatingly unpopular that Trump would, to avoid a 2026 midterms shellacking, “call martial law or declare that there’s some kind of national emergency in the country.”
The man who in 2024 was “certain” Kamala Harris would be the next president said much the same thing on Acosta’s podcast. “Do you worry about vote-tampering in the midterms?” Acosta asked Carville, as if deliberately setting him up to push their latest conspiracy theory – which, of course, is exactly what he was doing. “Do you worry about Donald Trump and Stephen Miller and some of these types monkeying around with the midterms … Do you worry about that, James?” Carville did indeed or claimed he did. "I don’t put anything past [Trump] — nothing — to try to call the election off, to do anything he can," the political strategist answered.
Reid, interviewed by left-wing writer Wajahat Ali, said she believed “it's insane, honestly, to just assume we're going to have normal elections next year.” Ali, for his part, hypothesized that President Trump “is going to say, 'Folks, I'm the commander in chief. I have to protect you. We're getting attacked by Antifa, the Muslims, the invasion, El Salvadorans. I have to declare martial law and I have to punt. I have to punt the elections.’” Reid was in agreement. After all, she is sure Trump “intends to stay in office like Putin till he dies."
The obvious missed or ignored point here is that, if Trump wanted an excuse to delay or cancel an election, assuming any president could actually pull that off, then 2020 would have been the perfect year: a pandemic, widespread and very serious civil unrest, and his upcoming battle for re-election. If Trump were ever going to do such a thing, he would surely have done it that year.
Charlemagne tha God, who had obviously also gotten the memo about citing the coming national anger over the BBB, told his audience, “[I]f the GOP doesn’t seem to be concerned about that, then what does that tell y’all, folks? Fight is probably already fixed when it comes to the midterm elections and 2028.”
Podcast duo Rye and Cross, who have, without a single shred of evidence, suggested the 2024 election was rigged, seem to think the 2026 midterms might not happen at all. "Even if they are going to happen,” Rye asked, “are they going to cheat like they did, I still feel like they did, in the 2024 election? I don't have data. I got a gut feeling, but I'm going to tell you about the Black woman and the Holy Ghost. We be spot on."
Of Elections Past and Rules Changed
After the general election of 2020, the left threw a four-year tantrum because many – perhaps most – Trump supporters claimed the presidential race was riddled with fraudulent voting and ballot-counting. Questioning the integrity of an election was the worst crime a person could commit. It was un-American, anti-democratic, and treasonous. The rules have changed, it seems. One can now claim election-rigging even before the first vote is cast.
Going all the way back to 1934, only Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Bill Clinton in 1998 (his second term), and George W. Bush in 2002 have seen their respective parties pick up seats in the House (the Senate is a slightly more mixed bag). As of this writing, Trump is well placed to notch a rare victory – and it might even be a big one.
Back again to 1934 and FDR, the Democrats gained nine House seats and nine Senate seats in that year’s midterms. Clinton’s Democrats picked up five House seats in 1998, breaking even in the Senate. George W. Bush saw Republicans gain eight House seats and two Senate seats in 2002. It is conceivable that Trump’s GOP could best them all – at least in the House. That would be seen as a historic victory for him, something Democrats simply could not face without having ready-made excuses on hand. We can all expect to hear a great deal more about how Trump is going to fix the 2026 midterms – so that, should the unthinkable happen for Democrats, they can point to their own predictions and try to gaslight everyone into believing those early prognostications somehow prove they were right.
