by Victor Davis Hanson
The 2026 midterm rout exposed Republican failures on the economy, Iran, and immigration. Trump can still recover, but Democrats risk overplaying their hand with a radical agenda.
Midterm Realities
In the 126 years since 1900, nearly 90 percent of the midterm elections have led to the party in the Oval Office losing House seats, and two-thirds of those same elections have led to it losing Senate seats. Given this history, midterm losses of some sort in 2026 were almost a sure bet. But what ensued in November went well beyond all normal expectations. When all the votes are tabulated, the current blue wave may match the massive midterm losses that buried Bill Clinton in 1994 and Barack Obama in 2010.
First, what does this massive 2026 slapdown now portend?
A second-term president in his final two years, facing a euphoric and frenzied opposition Congress, emboldened by a landslide, will have difficulty confirming federal judges or cabinet members. Most presidents in that dire situation try to rush through confirmations in the brief two remaining months of their lame-duck congressional majorities—not an easy task. Trump is, at this very moment, following in their footsteps.
Come next year, Trump will still not have to face a veto-proof Congress—unless renegade Republican senators and representatives join Democrats on key legislation to provide them with the necessary 67-Senate-vote/290-House-vote override.
It is critical for Trump, then, to shore up potentially apostate congressional Republicans and keep them in line to prevent this. Another problem: waves as huge as the 2026 blue wave can sometimes take two or three election cycles to correct themselves—meaning the 2026 left-wing momentum gives the socialist Democrats advantages in the 2028 presidential elections.
Even though the Democrats cannot hope to override the veto, some, like Elizabeth Warren, have recklessly called for ending the filibuster—a huge mistake when they don’t yet have the White House. (Why end this time-honored institution just to pass legislation that will be vetoed by an opposition president anyway?)
As for Trump’s own legislative initiatives—they are dead. Bipartisan initiatives with the new socialist Democratic Party could be explored, but they would likely be untenable in the eyes of the MAGA base. Otherwise, Democrats will vote against anything and everything Trump proposes—in the fashion of what Harry Truman once called his oppositional Republican legislators: “The Do-Nothing Congress.”
So-Called Lame-Duck Presidents
Nevertheless, sometimes presidents in the wake of bruising congressional losses find ways to stay dynamic and popular. The last two years of the Clinton and Obama administrations were supposed to be inert. They most certainly were not.
Clinton successfully went to war in Serbia against Slobodan Milosevic without congressional authority. He worked domestically with the Republican majority to ensure another two years of balanced budgets.
Obama was more confrontational after he had completely blown his huge congressional majorities. Even before the midterms, he had boasted that he had a pen and a phone and would govern domestically by executive orders and vetoes. And so he did—to an even greater degree after losing Congress.
Abroad, Obama entered the most contentious and radical two years of his administration. He continued his targeted assassination campaign, which would finally total 500 drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Obama restored relations with communist Cuba without congressional assent. And he signed on to the disastrous Paris Climate Accord and the Iran Deal. Despite claiming to be a constitutional-law expert, lame-duck Obama arbitrarily declared both agreements immune from Senate ratification.
At home, Obama, on his way out, nonetheless helped weaponize the FBI, the CIA, and the DNI and ordered them to dig deeper to find (nonexistent) evidence of Trump/Putin “collusion.”
Trump could very well follow some of these lame-duck precedents. Even now, he could stop radical Democratic legislation, quickly finish the Iran war, and continue to reset regions in the manner that he has already remade Latin America, which now bears little resemblance to its anti-American socialist character before 2025.
Twenty-seven months of his remaining tenure is a long time. If there were an end to the Ukraine war; if the Iranian theocracy becomes denuclearized or eventually even implodes; or if the strong economy goes into hyperdrive in 2027 (with 5 percent GDP growth, more good jobs reports, continuing record median household incomes, and continuing record-low poverty rates), then Trump could enjoy popularity on the level achieved by Clinton and Obama as they left office.
Blue Wave Bomb-Throwers
Historically, there is a problem with opposition-party midterm waves. The bomb-throwers, drunk on success, power, and notoriety, go overboard.
In 2010 and 2012, the Tea Party, enthusiastic about their spectacular successes, nominated poor senatorial candidates like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, Sharron Angle in Nevada, Ken Buck in Colorado, and Richard Mourdock in Indiana. They, and others like them, had little chance of winning.
The Republicans failed to build upon their control of Congress in the 1998 midterms. Despite widespread public anger at Bill Clinton’s various sexual imbroglios, they went wild, pursued endless cul-de-sac investigations, and foolishly authorized an impeachment inquiry right before the elections—in the midst of a booming economy. That wild goose chase ensured they would lose five House seats in 1998 and win no additional Senate seats, in what should have been a golden opportunity to win large gains.
Will a weak speaker like Hakeem Jeffries and a fossilized Senate majority leader like the rudderless Chuck Schumer be able to rein in some 25 new avowed progressives and six new avowed socialists in Congress?
Probably not.
The hard Left is younger, more energetic, and more charismatic than the ossified Democratic status quo. And yet Democrats learned in 2024 that their agendas—whether on the trans issue, DEI, the border, immigration, energy, or crime—poll at only 30–40 percent favorability. So it is likely that zealots will try once again to ram through stale radical legislation that the public has long been on record opposing.
The Real Cause of the Wave: The War, the Economy, and the Border
The War
Many Americans initially were not opposed to the idea of strikes aiming to denuclearize Iran—for example, of the kind launched in June 2025. They grew accustomed to and approved of Trump’s history of brief Jacksonian one-offs abroad: the elimination of Soleimani, al-Baghdadi, and Wagner Group mercenaries in Syria, as well as the later Maduro removal.
All were quick, decisive, and came at little cost.
Perhaps Trump thought Iran would follow the script. And so he did not explain the enormous complexities of neutering the near-half-century-old theocratic disrupter of the Middle East, ever intent on acquiring nuclear bombs.
The initial bombing went well. But the United States talked more of what was destroyed, rather than what still likely remained. And we did not adopt the current crippling sanctions during the first weeks of the war. Nor did we prepare by stockpiling oil or Patriots and Tomahawks. Nor were we at the outset fully prepared to keep the Strait open.
In short, the notion that the war would resemble the other brief encounters may have undermined the necessary material preparations for an Iran war of a totally different magnitude—even beyond the lack of any candid explanation to the American public about the enormity of the challenges Iran presented.
But most importantly, as Iran was reeling, we stopped fighting after 38 days. And then we inexplicably entered endless negotiations with a regime that has been historically incapable of honest dialogue.
Trapped in such a rut, the administration kept thinking that the midterms were still a long way off—even as they insidiously grew ever closer. Seven months, then six, then five, then four, then three, then two—and finally the midterms were upon them, as the promised peaceful deal was always just a proverbial week away.
The public expected a short, decisive war, which would eliminate the Iranian military-nuclear complex, spare the restive Iranian people, and leave the theocrats sanctioned and stewing in their own juices, perhaps even with the specter of a popular revolution on their horizon—and without ground troops or the direful prospect of nation-building.
That might still happen, but not if we reenter another disastrous cycle of talk/bomb/talk/bomb and the mantra that the war will be over in another one, two, or three weeks. We could, on our departure, hit Pickaxe Mountain to guarantee that there is no bomb-ready enriched uranium, then leave with crippling sanctions still in place, ensure that the Strait is kept open by our allies with our help, and allow the Israelis to arm whomever they wish in Iran.
“Affordability”
Remember how, in November 2022, even leftist pundits were fearing a “Red Wave”?
Given the sad state of the economy and Biden’s foreign-policy debacles, there was supposedly no reason why he would escape midterm calamity—of the sort that would, as Bill Clinton said of 1994, “beat the living daylights out of us”; that George W. Bush in 2006 called a “thumping”; and that Barack Obama in 2010 termed a “shellacking.”
But Biden did just that and avoided a wipeout. How and why?
Remember that Biden was polling dismally at 40 percent approval. The economy was in terrible shape. Gas had hit $5 a gallon in June 2022 and was still averaging $3.80 in November. Inflation had soared to 9.1 percent in 2022—entirely due to Biden’s bloated $6.27 trillion budget, with massive social spending timed right when post-COVID consumer demand was surging, and supply chains were still dormant.
Polls in 2022 showed that 80 percent of voters thought the economy was one of the chief issues and gave a resounding 14-point lead to Republicans over Democrats in fixing the mess.
Wartime disasters had also helped to crash Biden’s polls. A year earlier, the United States had fled Kabul, losing 13 service members and abandoning thousands of contractors and loyal Afghans, along with some $50 billion in weapons, equipment, and infrastructure, a new embassy, and a huge newly renovated military base.
Biden’s reaction to an imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 was unhinged. He scoffed that his response would depend on whether he felt it was a “minor incursion.” Such U.S. indifference and the earlier Afghanistan disaster had convinced Vladimir Putin that America and NATO either would not or could not do much about his aggression. Deterrence was lost, and then Putin attacked.
And yet, in spite of all that terrible news, the red wave of 2022 became a merely tiny ripple. Republicans picked up only nine seats, scarcely reclaiming the House, while Democrats actually picked up a Senate seat.
Fast forward to the present of 2026.
The same historical rules should apply: when a president has poor ratings and the economy is deemed bad, the opposing party should have a massive midterm rebound. And pundits certainly were convinced of an imminent 2026 Blue Wave midterm.
Trump was polling poorly—right about where Biden was in 2022. Democrats were the opposing party. And the economy was again the issue, along with a war in Iran.
But there are major differences between the circumstances that led to the red wave sputter in 2022 and to the blue wave blast in 2026. Ironically, most of them make 2022 look worse.
Inflation is not at 9.1 percent as in 2022, but will likely end this year at around 3.4–3.7 percent—well over five percentage points lower than Biden’s 2022 peak. Gas is still high at $4.17, but not much higher than Biden’s $3.80, and has never, in 2026, reached the Biden 2022 high of $5 a gallon.
Third-quarter GDP growth is higher than it was under Biden in November 2022. Wall Street’s Dow Jones index stood at an almost unbelievable 18,600 points higher in 2026 than it had in November 2022.
Manufacturing activity was soaring by November 2026, while it had grown sluggish by the 2022 midterms. The poverty rate was also higher in 2022. Real median household income soared in 2025 to around $87,000, up an inflation-adjusted $6,000 from the 2022 level. Unemployment is only slightly higher in 2026 (4.1 percent) than in 2022 (3.7 percent).
Tragically, 23 service members have died in the Iran War, more than the 13 who died during the supposedly peaceful withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021. But the $50 billion worth of American weapons and infrastructure abandoned to the Taliban was likely not much more than the cost of the Iran war to date.
So the question arises: why have “affordability,” the economy, and war supposedly doomed the Republicans to a huge blue wave—while these issues did not ensure a red wave in 2022?
After all, to reiterate, annual inflation was nearly three times higher in 2022. Gas prices were high in 2026, but they never reached $5 a gallon as they had in 2022. America’s Biden-era foreign-policy humiliations, from the misadventure in Afghanistan to a theater-wide war in Ukraine, were as controversial as the Iran war.
Yet there are two differences that might explain why “affordability” is an issue now in a way that Biden’s 9.1 percent inflation was not.
One reason the prior red wave was deflated and the current blue wave was inflated was the media reaction to supposedly bad economic news. The media more or less played down the 2022 price hikes, the Afghanistan disaster, the Ukraine war, and the generally bleak economic news, while hyping the bad economic data in 2026, even though the economic picture was, in many respects, far better.
Second, and more importantly, Trump left Biden an economy with an average annual inflation rate of only 1.9 percent and a moderate four-year aggregate 7.6 percent rise in prices. Hence, even though Biden spiked inflation to 9.1 percent in the 2022 midterm year, inflation would average 5.1 percent annually during his presidency—more than 20 percent in his four years—the affordability “crisis” was not as alarming as it might have been.
In dire contrast, Trump inherited an economy where prices were a staggering 21 percent higher than when he had left office four years earlier in January 2021—nearly three times higher than the price rise that Biden had inherited from Trump.
When Trump ran in 2024 on “fixing the economy,” his team assumed that this meant lowering the average yearly inflation rate. And during his first year back in office, Trump in fact cut the Biden-era average yearly inflation nearly in half, to 2.7 percent. Even in 2026, he still kept it lower than the Biden average, at an estimated 3.7 percent.
But Trump’s team did not explain to the voters that he could hardly reverse those huge Biden price rises, although he could certainly lower Biden’s inflation rate.
There is a significant difference between absolute prices and inflation rates that was never made clear to the voters. The fact that only a full-blown recession could have wiped out the price increases of the Biden years was never explained to them.
Nor did Republicans publicize the good news that families could deal more easily with the Biden inflation because Trump had, since the 2024 election, raised median household income by 2.6 percent.
Since it is almost impossible to reduce prices in absolute terms, that huge 21 percent Biden-era inflation surge could only be addressed by raising median income while keeping inflation much lower from that point onward. Trump did both, lowering inflation and raising income—but he did not, and could not, actually lower the prices that had soared under Biden.
The Border
Ironically, the successfully closed border undermined the popular appeal of Trump’s signature issue of illegal immigration. Once it was closed tight, voters breathed a sigh of relief—without considering that, while it is easy to allow 10 million of the world’s needy to storm the border, it is quite another thing to find them, spread out over 50 states and shielded by 600 sanctuary jurisdictions.
The result was that initial ICE apprehensions, sometimes done sloppily, were demonized by the left as “Gestapo tactics.”
Trump’s people forgot where the American people were on the issue. The latter certainly wanted the border closed. And they also wanted the 10 million new illegal aliens deported—but apparently in a fantasy manner of somehow magically being flown home without any unpleasant scenes.
Many also wanted some path to green cards for the pre-Biden population of long-residing illegal immigrants, but only those who (1) had not committed a crime, (2) were gainfully employed rather than on welfare, and (3) were willing to pay fines to obtain a green card. The time-consuming path to citizenship could be left up to the individual green-card holder.
The Democrats knew all that. And so they successfully managed to portray disproportionately Hispanic and other minority ICE officers as Nazis, illegal aliens—among them 660,000 criminals—into saints, and some of the more ostentatious and overreaching Trump cabinet officers into vicious Gauleiters.
The Takeaway
So what should we conclude from this recent midterm upset?
First, not to panic or despair. Trump could still accomplish quite a bit, both domestically and internationally, even without a congressional majority.
Second, to ignore hubristic leftist claims that the election results prove widespread American support for the boutique neo-socialist agenda.
If Democrats fail to learn this lesson, Republican success in 2028 is practically guaranteed.
Photo: US President Donald Trump holds an umbrella as he walks to speak to reporters before walking to board Marine One as he departs from the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, DC, on November 6, 2026. Trump on November 6, 2026, named Stephen Miller as his new chief of staff, promoting the architect of his hardline migration policy after the Republican Party's brutal US midterms defeat. Miller will replace current White House chief of staff Susie Wiles as of Monday, Trump said on his Truth Social network, thanking Wiles for an "outstanding job." (Photo by SAUL LOEB / AFP)
Victor Davis Hanson is a distinguished fellow of the Center for American Greatness and the Martin and Illie Anderson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He is an American military historian, columnist, a former classics professor, and scholar of ancient warfare. He has been a visiting professor at Hillsdale College since 2004, and is the 2023 Giles O'Malley Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Public Policy, Pepperdine University. Hanson was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the Bradley Prize in 2008. Hanson is also a farmer (growing almonds on a family farm in Selma, California) and a critic of social trends related to farming and agrarianism.
He is the author of the just released New York Times best seller, The End of Everything: How Wars Descend into Annihilation, published by Basic Books on May 7, 2024, as well as the recent The Second World Wars: How the First Global Conflict Was Fought and Won, The Case for Trump, and The Dying Citizen.
Source: https://amgreatness.com/2026/11/10/the-midterms-an-autopsy/
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