The Four Forces That Will Decide the Midterms

Political junkies obsess over the tactics. The outcome will be decided by something bigger.

Most political analysis, mine included, often focuses on the micro: the skills of the candidates, the efficacy of their messages, the quality of their ads, the virality of their videos, and the podcasts they do and don’t go on.

That’s the stuff that fills the diet of the true political junkies (like all of us), but in the end, the stuff that decides elections isn’t the small-bore strategy and tactics; it’s the larger forces that matter.

Kamala Harris didn’t lose because she skipped Joe Rogan’s podcast, or because of the infamous trans ad, or because she campaigned too much (or not enough) with Liz Cheney. None of those things helped, but Harris lost because she was the Vice President to a deeply unpopular President during a time of surging inflation and concern about the border. This is why I believed Trump was the favorite even in the middle of Brat Summer and Harris’s surge in the polls.

Similarly, the midterms won’t be decided by the messages and the ads, although that stuff will matter on the margins in very close races. If you want to know what’s going to happen in November, you need to understand the four forces shaping the political battlefield in 2026.

1. A Deeply Unpopular Incumbent

Midterms are always referendums on the party in power, and presidential approval correlates to electoral success. This is why most Presidents lose seats in the midterms, especially the second midterm. The only two modern examples of Presidents bucking that trend were Bill Clinton in 1998 and George W. Bush in 2002. In both cases, the incumbent Presidents had abnormally high approval ratings — Clinton because the Republicans made the politically insane choice to impeach him, and Bush because of 9/11 (this was before he invaded the wrong country).