By Vivek Mishra
Key Takeaways:
- Democrats have moved from possible to near-certain House control and a realistic Senate shot, fueled by voter anger over price rises tied to the Iran war and tariffs.
- Texas, Michigan and Alaska Senate races could decide control; Democrats need a net gain of four seats and have stressed small-dollar fundraising against Republican large-donor edges.
- Democratic majorities would likely trigger sharp executive-legislative clashes, including probes of officials such as Defense Secretary Hegseth, while the midterms remain the main brake on renewed U.S. action against Iran.
The grounds have shifted dramatically with regard to expectations around the US midterm elections, especially in the last few months. For the Democratic Party, the shift has been from possibility to near-certainty in the race for the House of Representatives, and it is now within the realm of possible control of the Senate.
The mood swing in the US electorate has been dramatic, to say the least. The boomerang impact of an international war on America’s inability to control prices seems to be the single most outstanding issue that the administration of President Donald Trump miscalculated, leading to a change in voter sentiment across states that Trump had managed to win in the last presidential election. At one level, the midterm elections across the US seem dominated by just one concern — price rise — while at another, they are layered with changes in voting patterns, concerns about unfulfilled promises, and shifting geographies of contest.
Two dominant trendlines from past midterms stand out this year as well: financial concerns such as rising prices, mortgage rates, and inflation, and an anti-incumbency mood against the party in office. Four of the last six midterms have been dominated by concerns over inflation and price rise. On anti-incumbency, the president’s party has lost House seats in each of the last five midterms. Moreover, only three presidents since the Civil War have gained House seats in a midterm — Franklin D. Roosevelt, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. Yet losing seats in a midterm has not stopped most presidents from winning again, despite this being currently inapplicable to Trump, who is constitutionally barred from seeking a third term.
As the run-up to the midterm elections enters the homestretch, the decisive issues for the American electorate may not differ much from those of the past, but what could prove consequential this time is the voters’ perception of how those issues came about and were aggravated. At the heart of these concerns are at least two factors that seem to be of Trump’s own making: the Iran war and tariffs, which have made energy prices and imported goods more expensive. For Donald Trump, having been at the helm, it is increasingly difficult to blame someone else for the state of the economy. Some of these issues have resonated strongly in certain states.
In Maine, for instance, rising energy bills driven by higher heating costs have become a key election issue, one that the Democratic Senate nominee, Troy Jackson, is trying to bring to the fore. In states like Mississippi and Kansas, which Trump carried comfortably in the 2024 presidential election, suburban and rural residents engaged in farming face the three-Fs problem: rising prices of fertiliser, fuel, and feed. The growing resentment among the Republican base may lead some voters to stay away from the polls altogether.
This midterm differs from past ones in the sheer amount of money being pumped in, which largely favours the Republicans, with Elon Musk the largest known donor. The Democrats, for their part, have tried to draw a direct contrast between rising prices and Trump’s claims on affordability across the country, on the one hand, and the growth in the president’s own wealth, on the other. This is linked to how Americans today view corruption within the government. The Democrats have focused on small-dollar online fundraising and have managed to pull in more money in smaller amounts than the Republicans, who nonetheless tower over them overall because of large donors.
Three Senate contests could decide control of Congress, and each is symbolic for the two parties. The Democrats need a net gain of four seats to take the Senate.
Texas is the first of the states where the battle is heated. Close to 7.5 million Texans have already voted during early voting, a record for a midterm, which suggests that turnout is high in a state where the Democrats have not won a Senate race since 1988. In the contest between Democrat James Talarico and Republican Ken Paxton, a tight race is matched by a stark clash of ideas.
In Michigan, the Democrats look to hold an open seat. Abdul El-Sayed, a rapidly emerging poster boy for the party and a progressive, narrowly beat Representative Haley Stevens in the primary, despite the institutional and monetary support she received. Polls show El-Sayed marginally ahead of Republican Mike Rogers. But the renewed public spat with Stevens, who on 1 November endorsed Rogers, raises doubts about whether the party is united. Losing Michigan would sharply reduce the Democrats’ chances of taking the Senate.
Alaska, another race rated a toss-up, pits Mary Peltola, a Democrat and the state’s former representative in the US House, against incumbent Republican Senator Dan S. Sullivan. Peltola led the August open primary with about 48 percent to Sullivan’s 43 percent. But the contest is complicated by a ballot controversy over a second candidate who shares the incumbent’s name. Dan J. Sullivan, a retired teacher, also qualified for the November ballot. Republicans call him a decoy candidate planted to confuse voters, and the New York Times reported that members of Peltola’s campaign helped recruit him. Peltola says she did not know of their involvement. A federal judge on 1 November dismissed a DOJ lawsuit seeking to block certification of the result if Sullivan loses, though the department has said it will appeal. The race may nonetheless be decided partly on legal and procedural grounds, since a federal criminal investigation into how the second Sullivan got on the ballot is continuing.
The other aspect of the midterms is what follows for the White House, regardless of how Congress looks. The second Trump presidency has displayed an unusually strong executive, and that is not expected to change, whichever party controls Congress. If anything, Democratic control of the Senate is likely to fuel a showdown between the legislature and the executive of a kind with few parallels in American history. The points of tension could range from Congress’s control of the purse to potential impeachment motions against some Trump administration officials, if not the president himself. In particular, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is expected to face multiple investigations, depending on the kind of control the Democrats have in Congress.
Then there is the external dimension to what comes next. A renewed US offensive against Iran appears to be a prospect held back only by the American midterm elections. In the absence of a deal between the US and Iran, Trump is likely to embrace an “all bets are off” approach against Tehran. A Democratic-controlled Congress, in constant confrontation with the White House, could tip Washington into a domestic political spiral, the costs of which may prove insurmountable for other countries. With Trump, there is a cost regardless of how the midterms turn out; the nature of the results will determine its severity.
- About the author: Vivek Mishra is Deputy Director with the Strategic Studies Programme at the Observer Research Foundation.
- Source: This article was published by the Observer Research Foundation.
