In a time of decisive action, when the country sees everything clearly and media propaganda fails, winners will seize the opportunity, and losers will snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Much of what I do falls under the category of expectations management. Getting excited about improbable or impossible scenarios only causes frustration and heartache in the end, when in reality, taking a realistic approach to complex problems allows for an individual or team to properly allocate time, energy, and money toward winning that which can be won.
So it is with 35 Senate seats, all 435 House seats, state legislative chambers, and the variety of offices up for grabs in the 2026 midterm elections. In a February piece, I detailed why the midterm dynamics throughout modern political history are slanted the way they are, and these will primarily impact the disposition of the U.S. House, given that the elected GOP majority was just 220 to 215 last fall thanks to a plethora of ripped off races (a California specialty, like street rioting), weak election laws, and the compromised U.S. Census, which has given blue states as many as 16 more electoral votes than they should have (and thereby, the number of U.S. Representatives).
As I commented last week, there should be no trouble in the GOP holding the Senate, although any blue-to-red pickups are dicey at best.
But why are you so bearish about the odds of expanding the Republican House majority? From my initial 2026 overview:
How solid is the precedent that the President’s party takes a beating in midterms? Since the beginning of New Deal politics (1932 presidential election), beginning with 1934 midterms, the President’s Party has:
· Lost seats in the U.S. House 20 of 23 times (87.0%)
Exceptions 1934, 1998, 2002
· Lost seats in the U.S. Senate 16 of 23 times (69.6%)
Exceptions 1934, 1962, 1970, 1982 (null), 1998 (null), 2002, 2018
· Average loss of House seats is 27 seats since 1934
· Average loss of Senate seats is 3.1 seats since 1934
· Bush ’06 lost 32 House seats
· Obama ’10 lost 63 House seats
· Obama ’14 lost 13 House seats
· Trump ’18 lost 41 House seats
· Biden ’22 lost 9 House seats
· Trump ’18 gained 2 Senate seats, suggesting partisan shift favoring Republicans in statewide races
The biggest headwinds, as demonstrated by historical precedent, are in the House. Currently, the U.S. House Republican majority is sitting at a measly 218-215, owing not only to the perception that the establishment Republican Party is way less popular than Donald Trump, but also to significant changes (and redistricting) made to election law in the past decade, which allows for rampant cheating to distort the strength of legislative majorities at federal and state levels. Read more about the impacts of down ballot cheating in 2024 here.
Clearly, just based on averages and math, it’s an uphill climb for the GOP in 2026 to hold the House. Even taking Biden’s loss of nine seats, the best incumbent midterm performance in 20 years, would put the GOP in the minority at 224-211. The average loss, since 1934, of 27 seats would put the Republicans in Congress at a 242-193 minority.
One day soon, I’ll start digging into the 435 races just as I profiled all 56 races for electoral votes in 2024 (50 states, Washington, D.C., and the five split electoral votes of Maine and Nebraska). For now, the window has opened for the Republican Party to retain and expand its U.S. House majority, in what would be a major political coup given the tendency of the President’s party to get smacked at midterm time, even when the President is popular or on course to be reelected.
Readers should expect to find a variety of suppression polls this summer, especially when it comes to views of the two major political parties, any House races, and the popularity of the President. The fake approve/disapprove poll numbers for Trump have always been with us, and while most propaganda outlets have him somewhere in the upper 40s for approval, the more accurate pollsters like Trafalgar and Rasmussen Reports have him buzzing between 51 and 54% approval. Richard Baris, another pollster I trust, is signaling on social media that Trump’s approval is about to formally skyrocket, which will force the media into a major spin cycle.
Both parties have dedicated committees to taking or holding chambers of Congress, which handle candidate selection, campaign finance, endorsements, and all other bells and whistles associated with a two-year long push to take power.
Anyone leading the U.S. House charge for the GOP, again with just a five-seat majority as elected, would want to see the following to have any hope whatsoever of bucking history’s midterm trends, which suggest a Democrat takeover of the House since the GOP can only afford to lose two seats:
· President Trump with high popularity numbers
· Trump’s policies with high approval ratings
· Public disasters and negative events widely associated with challenging party
· The challenging party in disarray
If you don’t have all four of those things going for you, you’re going to fall into the 20 out of 23 category – meaning since 1934, the President’s party has lost House seats in 20 out of 23 midterm elections, and for an average of 27 seats. We are going for the exception here, the one-in-eight shot that the people will be so fed up with the Democrats that Republicans defy the trend that has been present for nine decades since the New Deal era forever altered political science.
Reviewing those four items:
· President Trump’s true approval rating is clearly in the black and likely to head even higher once our cities stop burning
· Even CNN can’t suppress the anger citizens feel over immigration, thanks to a bunch of Mexicans in our streets waving Mexican flags, chomping at the bit to tell the press how racist and inhumane it is to be deported back to the country they support.
· The Democrat Party owns this crisis lock, stock, and barrel, and Gavin Newsom’s presidential ambitions are dead in the water. Minority Americans, who shifted heavily rightward last fall, know this is a Democrat-led political stunt, and will be further convinced they made the right choice to leave.
· Number four, the disarray and dissolution of the Democrats, is what makes this window the widest.
Here is what former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich had to say in his newsletter yesterday about the state of play:
Democrats are doing nothing but heeding their far, far left influencers. This may play well among the Democrats themselves, but it disgusts the US public. They continue with their assumption that bringing in 20 million illegal immigrants appeals to anyone and everyone of Latin descent. In actual fact, it repulses them, even more than it repulses the rest of the US taxpayers.
They also continue shitting in their own messkit, committing their usual acts of arrogant disregard for the democratic process. They pulled every string to make that insufferable idiot David Hogg a co-chair of the DNC and then, when he embarrasses them all, they just declare the election didn’t count, so he’s out. While that was the correct result from the beginning, their disregard for their own process simply shows how little respect they have for any Constitutional process that does not produce the results they demand.
Leftist propaganda will be strong, as will the efforts of election fraud. Hopefully Musk (and his money) will remain in our camp and oppose the fraudulent efforts again. Maybe Musk realizes that the only chance for the spending cuts and cuts to the debt are only possible (but in no way assured) by a Republicans majority strong enough to make the cuts permanent.
Will we be better off under a Republican majority which has to seek the permission of the Democrats before it advances?
The GOP LITERALLY does NOTHING to further their values or platform when they have the majority…so keeping it is a moot point.
All the Republicans do in congress is generate fundraising letters. If anything happens to benefit the constituents it is purely an accident.
Next year they will be running on the fact that they aren’t Democrats. That is fertilizer and won’t get the Republican base out. Congress’ approval will crash even lower when the details of the OBBB(One Big Barrel of B.S.) come out.