The last electoral test for Trump

Few things are as characteristic of US President Donald Trump's political image as his persistent claim that the American left is stealing his election. If we don't stop them, he warns his supporters, we will be left without a country.

When he (deservedly) defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, but without a majority of the popular vote, he insisted that millions of people voted against him illegally and that the Democratic Party “rigged the election at the polls.” When he lost to Joe Biden in 2020, he repeated these accusations and added new ones, then incited a riot at the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the election results from being certified. In 2024, he claimed that Democrats recognized his victory over Kamala Harris only because the margin was “too large to be rigged.”

Now Trump faces his final major electoral test. Although his name will not be on the ballot in November, the results of the congressional midterm elections are almost always seen as a referendum on the incumbent president and his policies, especially when his party holds a majority in both houses of Congress.

This election comes at a time when Trump is deeply unpopular. His approval rating is now lower than that of any other American president at this stage of his second term in the last 80 years. The exception was Richard Nixon, on the eve of his shameful resignation in 1974. But this time, Trump, judging by his actions, does not seem to care at all about the outcome of this election.

Earlier this summer, Trump repeated his baseless accusations about the previous election in a televised address to the nation. He also accused China of creating an “unprecedented nightmare of election security”: hackers, he claimed, had accessed millions of voter records and manipulated social media (though he did not propose any countermeasures against China). He also accused Democrats of hiding evidence and again called on the Republican-dominated Congress to pass new laws requiring all voters to show identification at the polls, a measure opposed by many of his party colleagues. None of this rhetoric is new, though, and most Republicans now facing challenges in the midterm elections have done little to fuel Trump’s various conspiracy theories.

Yet the president seemed determined to undermine his own party’s most likely candidates for reelection even more directly. In state after state, he succeeded in sending capable, independent-minded Republican congressmen into political retirement, and instead of incumbents who had a better chance of standing up to popular Democratic opponents, he favored those who swore allegiance to him. He repeatedly damaged Republican leaders in the House and Senate, trying to force them to take extremely unpopular positions or pass legislation that had no chance of being implemented. He also pressured Republican congressmen to cancel the August recess, a crucial time for campaigning in their states and constituencies.

But most importantly, Trump is devoting a lot of attention to issues that are personally important to him (a new White House ballroom, new monuments in Washington, political revenge on enemies), while simultaneously ignoring pressing problems, including rising consumer prices, which have been further fueled by Trump's self-initiated war on Iran and his tariff policies.

What is really happening? Has Trump lost interest in preserving the Republican majority? Democrats will almost certainly take control of the House of Representatives, giving the opposition some power over government spending and the opportunity to launch formal investigations into the president and his administration. They could even launch a third impeachment trial. The outcome in the Senate is much more uncertain, but there too the opposition could win a majority, which would jeopardize Trump's ability to secure support for his nominees in the Senate for high office, judges, and the Supreme Court.

It is precisely this prospect that explains why Trump seems to be unconcerned about his party’s vulnerable majority: he knows his chances of success are slim. When the votes are counted in November, the president will refuse to accept the outcome. He will send immigration police to monitor polling places. He will challenge results where the difference in votes is minimal, question the reliability of voting machines and the work of election administration (especially in states where Democrats hold a majority), claim that shadowy foreign agents helped the opposition win. And he will argue that the Republicans would have won a landslide victory if only they had done everything he asked of them.

This expected reaction will further undermine public confidence in the institutions of American democracy, but it will not affect the final outcome of the election. As in all of Trump's elections - the presidential ones in 2016, 2020, and 2024, as well as the midterm elections in 2018 and 2022 - local authorities will count the votes, and the legitimate winners will take their seats. Trump cannot change this, because the US federal authorities have no role in conducting the elections. Their outcome is decided by each federal state individually.

The country’s institutional mechanisms that protect American democracy will once again hold up. Whatever Trump says or does in the days, weeks, and years ahead, American courts will reject his appeals. Even his own Republicans, no matter what they say when pressed by reporters to give their personal views on Trump’s claims, will simply move on, preparing for the many political and legislative battles that will begin in the post-Trump era.

In the process, we will begin to turn a new page in American presidential history after Trump’s chapter. Vice President J.D. Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and many others will cautiously begin to look for a way to extricate themselves from the fading orbit of Trump’s political star. Without Trump to hold them together, Democrats will quickly begin to fight their own battles among themselves. America’s allies and rivals will begin to think about how the next US president, whether Republican or Democrat, might change America’s political and foreign policy course.

Yes, two years is a long time in geopolitics. There will be more episodes in the Trump story, and this president will continue to shape American policy and its role in a rapidly changing and increasingly fragmented world. But the November midterm elections, no matter how tumultuous the political dramas that will follow, will be a turning point in the country's recent history. Trump's ability to push the boundaries of what is possible within America, as well as in its relations with friends and foes, has reached its peak.

The author is the founder and president of Eurasia Group and GZERO Media; is a member of the UN Advisory Body on Artificial Intelligence

Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2026.