Referendum on Trump: The race for the US midterm elections enters decisive phase

The youngest current U.S. senator, Democrat Jon Ossoff of Georgia, was about to deliver what looked like another campaign speech for his November midterm reelection bid. It was not. “He doesn’t want to do the job,” he said of President Donald Trump at that August rally in Atlanta. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

Natalie Harp is Trump’s personal aide and closest confidante, who accompanies the president on every trip. Ossoff’s remarks went viral and triggered an angry response from the White House and the president himself. “The biggest cuck loser in politics,” White House communications director Steven Cheung called him. The administration’s attacks kept the controversy alive for days, turned Harp and Trump’s working relationship into one of the summer’s main topics and boosted Ossoff’s campaign so much that polls now list him as the favorite to keep his seat in November, while his name is being floated as a potential candidate for the Democratic ticket in 2028.

The clash between Ossoff and the White House came at a particularly sensitive moment. With two months to go before the midterm elections, the fight for a set of pivotal U.S. seats is already in full swing. The midterms will determine all 435 members of the House of Representatives and one-third of the 100 senators. The party that wins will be able to give Trump free rein over his agenda, as Republicans have done so far, or block his measures and appointments. The Democratic opposition is rubbing its hands at the prospect — if it is victorious — of launching impeachment proceedings against the president and members of his team, as it did during the Republican’s first term after its 2018 electoral surge.

Given what is at stake, Trump and the Republicans have spent months trying to secure a victory, even if it means changing the rules mid-game. The president, who warned his fellow partisans in January about the risk of impeachments, has pressured — with mixed results — for states where his party controls legislatures to redraw congressional districts to favor Republican outcomes. He is also pursuing measures to make mail voting harder, a method traditionally used more by Democratic voters. This week he will headline an unusual midterm Republican convention — normally held every four years to formally name the party’s presidential nominee — convened in Dallas and hastily organized to give the president a platform as voters begin to seriously consider how they will cast their ballots in two months.

Ossoff is not the only Democrat feeling optimistic. Polls point to the opposition party as the favorite — by three to seven percentage points in voting intent — in midterms that are shaping up as a broad referendum on Trump.

Concern over high prices

From progressive Maine to conservative Missouri, from Florida to Oregon, voters express concern about several of the president’s key policies: the war with Iran, which is heating up again after six months; the draconian immigration policy; and tariffs and other economic measures that have driven up the cost of living.

Burdened by high costs — the price of gasoline, the main benchmark for the average American to measure how hard their pocket is being hit, rose again last weekend, the last holiday of the summer — they are baffled by Trump’s fixation on projects such as the lavish ballroom he has ordered built at the White House. The president’s approval rating is at its lowest levels in his second term: the most recent Financial Times poll puts it at 34%.

Democrats, who suffered a heavy defeat in the 2024 presidential election — precisely because of voters’ concerns over inflation and high costs — have regained support among their base and disillusioned independent voters unhappy with Trump and the current situation. Polls indicate that, if the election were held tomorrow, the opposition would win a comfortable majority in the House of Representatives, where Republicans currently lead by a handful of seats. They also have a chance to take the Senate, something that would have seemed impossible just months ago: Republicans hold a firmer majority in that chamber (53 seats to the Democrats’ 47) and most of the seats at stake in November are in states Trump won decisively.

“President Trump’s weakness, exacerbated by the ripple effects of his decision to attack Iran, means that his approval rating is likely underwater not only in the classic swing states, but also in many if not all of the key red states hosting important Senate races this year,” writes Kyle Kondrik on the University of Virginia political analysis site Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball.

A handful of key states

Everything will depend, as in the 2024 presidential race, on a handful of states and on individual campaigns. Analysts take the Democrats capturing the House for granted. In the Senate, they need to pick up four seats on top of the 47 they already hold. One seat is already considered near-certain: North Carolina, where their candidate is popular former governor Roy Cooper. Of the 33 seats in play, half a dozen still lack a clear favorite: Maine, Ohio, Alaska, Texas, Iowa and Michigan. Only one of those — Michigan — was held by Democrats until now.

Trump won five of those seats (all except Maine) two years ago. Some, like Texas or Alaska, reliably vote Republican. Now, the average of multiple polls published daily by RealClearPolitics shows the Democratic candidate in Texas, seminarian James Talarico, leading his rival Ken Paxton by 2.4 percentage points. In Alaska, Mary Peltola is ahead by two points. In Maine, Troy Jackson leads veteran Republican Senator Susan Collins by 2.4 points. Former governor Sherrod Brown leads his rival by 2.6 percentage points in Ohio. Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a socialist Democrat seeking to become the first Muslim U.S. senator, has a 2.3-point margin. Only in Iowa does Republican Ashley Hinson hold an advantage, of 1.8 points.

Polls are not infallible. Four years ago they forecast a large wave of Republican victories in the 2022 midterms that never materialized. And while Republicans themselves recognize voter discontent, they also point to significant advantages. The first is financial: their party has more funds to finance campaigns. After months of estrangement, Trump has promised to invest part of the $400 million in campaign funds he controls to support Republican candidates in races he considers key. Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has also created a $50 million fund for that purpose.

Republicans also point to internal divisions among Democrats and the rise of candidates from the Democratic socialist wing whom they believe could repel moderate independents. And if these elections become a referendum on Trump, the president still holds sway over a significant portion of the electorate. They note, among other things, that during the Republican primary campaign, Trump-backed candidates won 96% of the races.

Trump has promised to devote the final 30 days of the campaign to crisscrossing the country on behalf of his party’s candidates. He plans to focus on 35 congressional districts he calculates will be decisive in determining which party ends up controlling Congress.

“I’m absolutely convinced we’re going to defy the historic trend and keep and grow the House majority for Republicans,” House speaker Mike Johnson said.

Democrats, however, are not hiding their own optimism. “We have six core offensive opportunities [to win the Senate] and we are still expanding the map, forcing Republicans to scramble to defend deep red states as we head into November with multiple paths to win the majority,” Devan Barber, director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, said.

Their strategy is simple: focus messaging on voters’ disillusionment with the economic situation. And keep highlighting Trump and his priorities. Repeat, as Ossoff said at that Atlanta rally, that the president “doesn’t want to do the job.”

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