Republicans have been their own worst enemies

The Trump administration’s policies and decisions have been the biggest disadvantage for the Grand Old Party. Yet, there’s no Blue wave

With rare exceptions, the political party of the president of the US has always lost seats in the Congressional mid-term elections. The Republicans, though, are going into the 2026 mid-terms with certain advantages, and they have done everything they could in the states they control to magnify those advantages. The Democratic opposition also suffers from important liabilities. Yet as election day approaches, some pundits predict a Blue wave that will catapult the Democrats back into control of the House of Representatives and the Senate. The Republicans have made things much worse for themselves than it would have been in a business-as-usual scenario.

Much of the last-minute GOP campaign effort is aimed at bringing Republican voters to the booth, who are much less enthusiastic than Democrats about voting this year. Trump himself has spent the last few weeks holding rallies in states he won by huge margins in an effort to mobilise his core supporters to turn out on Election Day. (Getty Images)

Retaining control of the House was always going to pose a tough challenge to the Grand Old Party (GOP). The partycurrently holds 218 seats, the absolute minimum needed to organise the chamber. Some Republican members won in districts that Trump himself lost in 2024 and were vulnerable from day one.

In an effort to tilt the playing field in their favour, Republicans in states such as Texas and Florida engaged in off-cycle redistricting to increase the number of seats they were likely to win. (Redistricting usually follows the decennial census.) But the Democrats countered with their own redistricting schemes in several states they controlled, helping neutralise the potential Republican gains.

Although, on paper, the Republicans face a greater risk in the Senate mid-terms because they have more seats up for re-election (22 versus 13 for the Democrats), many of the GOP seats are in solidly red states that Trump won in 2024, with substantial margins. With 53 seats in the 100-member Senate, the Republicans have enjoyed a seemingly safe margin, enhanced because any 50-50 tie vote would be broken by vice-president JD Vance. This means the Democrats would need to hold their current strength and gain four more seats to secure control.

The Trump administration has put its finger on the scale, too, trying to discourage voting by Democratic-leaning constituencies. The justice department has pressured the states to turn over voter rolls so it can seek to identify ineligible voters, especially immigrants without citizenship. States under Democratic control have resisted and generally prevailed in the courts. The administration has also threatened to send immigration enforcement agents to polling places, an obvious attempt to intimidate potential voters of foreign birth – even immigrant citizens fear entanglement with the heavy-handed US Homeland Security agents.

Things have not played out as the Republicans anticipated. On the eve of the election, they find themselves playing defence in Senate races they had expected to win easily. Polls show voters evenly split in states such as Iowa, Kansas (where no Democrat has won a Senate seat in nearly 100 years), Alaska, Texas, Mississippi, and South Carolina. Republican Party campaign organisations and unaffiliated conservative political action committees (PACs) are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in last-ditch media blitzes to hold the line where they had never intended to invest a dime. They have been forced into campaign triage mode in both the House and Senate races, withdrawing funds from so-called purple states (closely contested by both parties) where they hoped to hold seats (North Carolina) or even make gains (Georgia).

Opinion polls highlight the unpopularity of Donald Trump (approved by a mere one-third of respondents) and the Republicans. Much of the last-minute GOP campaign effort is aimed at bringing Republican voters out, who are much less enthusiastic than Democrats about voting this year. Trump himself has spent the last few weeks holding rallies in states he won by huge margins in an effort to mobilise his core supporters to turn out on Election Day.

Little of this has to do with voters suddenly embracing the Democratic Party. It remains divided between its moderate and progressive wings, and it has no recognised national leader to speak for the party as a whole. Former President Joe Biden has vanished from sight, and few remember his term fondly enough to regret his disappearance; former vice-president Kamala Harris has been too busy selling her memoir to articulate a path for the party. Polls suggest the party is only slightly less unpopular than the GOP.

Rather than the Democrats doing anything to score over the GOP, the Republicans’ plight owes more to them having repeatedly shot themselves in the foot. Most of the wounds were inflicted by their own unquestioned leader, Trump. His poorly planned war against Iran has proven to be a political millstone for the party. Americans have faced sharply increased fuel prices, with the high cost of diesel placing a particular burden on farmers who long have been a core GOP constituency. Inflation has persisted, in no small measure because fuel prices ripple through the economy. In an effort to bring inflation down, the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates high and indicated it may rise in the future, much to the President’s chagrin. Trump’s inconsistent and unpredictable tariffs have also contributed to higher prices, without returning the many jobs to the US that he had promised.

In ways that few would have anticipated, the 2026 mid-term elections have brought the question of class privilege back into American politics. Again, much of this is Trump’s doing, however inadvertent. He has been openly dismissive about voters’ concerns about the high cost of fuel and groceries. Ongoing stories about how his family, cronies, and business associates have enriched themselves by capitalising on their White House connections have reinforced the perception that grift is the main animating principle of this administration. Strongmen elsewhere, such as Viktor Orbán in Hungary, have been turned out of office when voters wearied of their relentless corruption and self-dealing.

That said, it would be reckless to predict sweeping a Republican defeat on November 3, much less a Blue wave. Democratic hopes in places like Mississippi, South Carolina, Kansas, and Texas may turn out to be fool’s gold: Polls have become less reliable in the Trump era, and Republican voters have been notably less willing to answer surveys. Many of the contests likely will be very close, which in turn will lead to claims about voter fraud, missing ballots, and counting errors. Once again, the courts may have to adjudicate these disputes before Americans will know who controls Congress.

Andrew J Polsky is professor emeritus, department of political science, Hunter College, CUNY. The views expressed are personal