The state of play in the US midterm elections

Current polling for the 3 November midterm elections in the United States suggests American voters will reject the type of governance that President Donald Trump is trying to impose on America.

By their vote on 3 November, Americans will probably flip control of the US House of Representatives from the Republicans to the Democrats. It’s likely, but less certain, that control of the US Senate will also switch to the Democrats. 

These choices will show that Americans want elected representatives who’ll counter a president who is governing in a highly personalistic manner that is antithetical to America’s foundational democratic ethos of three branches of government checking each other.

The upcoming vote will show Americans rejecting representatives who’ve enabled Trump’s tariffs, his war with Iran, his self-enrichment, and his approach to immigration.

And it will imply that American voters want the Democrats’ focus on affordability, fairness, and decency for American society. 

Inaccurate polling

Yes, polls of the American electorate have been notoriously inaccurate in the Donald Trump era due to undercounting of his support. 

But a range of polls concur that Trump and his Maga movement are headed for a significant “shellacking,” to use Barack Obama’s memorable description of Democrats’ resounding defeat in the 2010 midterms.

Around 40-plus percent of Americans vote in midterm elections. But data reveal that bumper numbers of voters have already gone to the polls this year and many of those who’ve voted before Election Day are Democratic voters. 

Republican supporters will have to vote in unheard-of amounts on 3 November itself to offset the early vote totals that Democrats appear to have already banked.

Midterms are, by definition, a referendum on a sitting president, even though the president isn’t directly on the ballot. History shows that the party which won the presidency typically gets humbled in the midterm elections that follow two years later. And the current president has become singularly unpopular.

The Trump slump

President Trump’s favourability has slumped to the low-to-mid 30s, depending on the poll. The more than 60% of Americans who disapprove of his performance in office are upset about the constantly increasing cost of petrol, diesel, groceries, housing, healthcare and childcare. 

They are especially angry as Trump promised that he’d “bring down prices on Day One” of his presidency and that there would be “no forever wars”. 

But instead of trying to solve the affordability crises affecting voters, Trump seems preoccupied with extending cost-raising tariffs, continuing the unpopular war with Iran that keeps further spiking prices, obsessing over vanity projects and hobnobbing with tech CEOs who desire energy-guzzling data centres in communities where they aren’t wanted. 

Rather than acknowledge his unpopularity by stepping back so Republicans on the ballot can run campaigns tailored to local issues instead of having to address deteriorating national economic circumstances, Trump keeps making these midterms about himself.

His crisscrossing of the country to hold campaign rallies is awkward for Republicans running in competitive races who’d prefer distance from him, his cratering popularity and his disliked policies. 

They can’t criticise him or his policies because they need his help to draw his hardcore supporters to the polls.

Democrat Jon Ossoff, running for re-election to the US Senate in Georgia against Mike Collins, a Trump supporter, pronounced that he’d be “delighted for the president to come [to Georgia] every day between now and the election.”

Canvassing clips

I have canvassed this election cycle – knocking on front doors to chat with voters about the election – as a volunteer for Democratic candidates in parts of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Virginia. My experience confirms that many who voted for Trump in the past are now disenchanted with him and his policies’ negative impact on their daily lives. 

A middle-aged Black man with bulging biceps in Winchester, Virginia, perhaps a military veteran, admitted to voting for Hillary Clinton in 2016 and for Trump in 2020 and 2024. He was thrilled to learn that early voting was already under way in Virginia. He planned to go and vote immediately after our conversation as he “couldn’t stand what that [expletive] has done to America.”

Many others who supported Trump in the past aren’t inclined to go and vote this time. 

A 52-year-old Burmese immigrant in Lansing, Michigan, declared that he wouldn’t ever be voting again, saying that, “All politicians are corrupt. I also want to become a politician. But first I have to learn to lie.” 

Others justify their lack of interest in voting by saying it makes “no difference”, “both sides are the same”, “the system is rigged”, or “the system doesn’t ever accurately reflect how people vote”. 

A 45-year-old woman, also in Winchester, lamented how in her family of four with three adult children, she was the only one with a full-time job and how it was impossible to make ends meet. She had zero interest in voting: “It’s all bull [expletive].” 

Desperation rallies, huge donations

It is telling that Trump is now headlining rallies in the conservative parts of states that reliably vote Republican, showing that he’s trying to shore up support there, and not let it haemorrhage further.  

Unprecedented sums of money from Republican and Maga-aligned political action committees (PACs) is sloshing into races where Republican candidates are having a tougher time than imagined. 

Through his own PAC as well as through a Republican Senate fund, Elon Musk alone has now donated around $440-million this election cycle. This is a significant increase over the $290-million he spent in the 2024 presidential election, when he was also the single largest donor to the Republican cause. 

These infusions are giving Republicans a huge cash advantage over the Democrats, especially when ownership groups sympathetic to Republican interests have increased their control over legacy and social media through consolidation and recent purchases. 

This money is being spent on negative advertising about Democrats and their policies, fomenting more distrust and cynicism. 

Remember that US elections are typically won or lost at the margins, with only a small percentage of independent and moderate voters being amenable to swinging in how they vote.

We’ll only learn on or after Election Day if these ugly sums of money provoke a further backlash against Trump, Musk and Republicans. 

Voter suppression

At his rallies, Trump is now repeatedly offering “deals” to American voters. He’s promised $5,000 to all adult Americans on condition that Republicans keep control of both the House and the Senate. To military families at Camp Lejeune in North Carolina, he vowed that all claims about contaminated water there would be settled if both houses stay Republican, even though settling these suits is a commitment the US government made in the Biden presidency. He’s also announced $8-billion in relief for American farmers from the increases in diesel costs. 

Earlier this year, Trump urged lawmakers in Republican-dominated states to gerrymander or redistrict their congressional seats to create yet more Republican-friendly districts. This backfired in that Democratic-leaning states promptly also re-engineered districts in their states to nearly net the effect of the Trump-inspired gerrymanders. 

Trump and his supporters are also deliberately trying to suppress voter turnout. 

To create confusion, long-standing polling stations in communities that typically vote Democratic are suddenly being changed or denied use of the site. 

Despite losing a US Supreme Court case that did not forbid restrictions on mail-in ballots received after Election Day, there are reports documenting slow postal service in returning mail-in ballots. It is unclear whether these are intentional or due to operational changes.

Protecting the right to vote

Democrats are responding in multiple ways to these and other threats to the ability of Americans to vote. Constitutional lawyers have been gaming different scenarios for months. Lawyers are on standby for all types of untoward actions from the White House or other agencies of the executive branch before, on, and after Election Day. 

The Department of Justice is suing Alaska to block certification of the Alaska Senate race if Dan Sullivan, the Republican incumbent, loses by a margin smaller than the vote total for an independent candidate with a similar name. Legal experts are calling the lawsuit “meritless.”

Democrats are also training election observers or “constitutional protectors” to stand watch at polling stations, particularly to document and report any attempts by Trump administration officials to interfere with Americans’ right to vote. 

Federal agencies do have constitutional authority to regulate federal elections and to enforce voting rights laws, but the US Constitution assigns responsibility for administering elections to the states. In many states, counties actually run elections under the jurisdiction of that state’s secretary of state.  

Many Americans readily share that they voted for Trump and that they still support him. Yet as I canvass for Democrats for 3 November, I’m also struck by how many Americans already deny that they ever voted for him. They remind me of how many older white South Africans won’t now admit that they ever voted for the National Party with its apartheid vision for South African society. 

From the front door, I could see a placard in the dining room of a man in Lansing, Michigan, that stated “[Expletive] Trump” in large lettering. But the man told me, with an ironic smile, that he “loved Trump” because he was singlehandedly blowing up three things that, in this man’s view, needed destroying: the Republican Party, the evangelical Christian movement, and US policy toward Israel. 

Many of the 70 million Americans who voted for Trump in 2024 now recognise that he doesn’t act with Americans’ best interests at heart. But will they vote for Democrats this election and beyond? Or will they not vote at all? We’ll learn more on 4 November. DM