Trump’s presidency could be effectively over in days: data expert

U.S. President Donald Trump walks after exiting Air Force One in Morristown, New Jersey, U.S., September 4, 2026. REUTERS/Eric Lee

President Donald Trump's political era could come crashing down in a matter of days as election forecaster Nate Silver says a midterm wipeout could leave the president a "super lame duck" for the rest of his term.

Silver, the founder of FiveThirtyEight, made the prediction in an interview with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein to discuss his feeling that the upcoming election is “momentous.”

"If the election goes roughly as the polls say it will go, then in some ways it would mark the end of the Trump era. I think," Silver told Klein, continuing: "He'll still be president for two more years. But the minute the 2028 election campaign begins, and if Trump has a bad night, as polls show, then he's a super lame duck."

Silver compared Trump’s potential fate to George W. Bush, whose last two years in office after the 2006 midterms were legislatively strangled by Democrats when they took control of both chambers of Congress.

The warning comes as most polls point toward a GOP wipeout with major Republican losses up and down the country as they are predicted to pay the price for Trump’s unpopular and costly domestic and foreign policies.

Silver delivered devastating results for Republicans on Sunday during an appearance on CNN using his FLIPR forecasting model. He told host Fareed Zakaria that is model gave Democrats roughly a 95 percent chance of taking the House and a 75 to 76 percent chance of winning the Senate.

In the NY Times interview, Silver said this election cycle feels different because Democrats could flip traditionally red districts, with many in razor-thin races, leaving Republicans pouring money where they thought they wouldn’t need to.

"And part of what people understandably are having trouble believing in the polls, it kind of looks like a different regime, where Kansas is competitive, Texas is competitive, potentially gains for Democrats deep into Republican territory," he said.

Republicans currently control both chambers, making November's contest a referendum on the first two years of Trump's second term as Democrats seek to capitalize on the historically unpopular Iran war and the rising cost of living.

Losing Congress would not only severely limit Trump’s ability to pass legislation, but also open the door to the investigations and oversight Democrats say they are already preparing for.

Silver suggested the transition could be bigger: “But maybe we’re on the verge of something different between generational turnover, between Trump being three-quarters of the way through his two constitutionally provided-for terms”

He singled out artificial intelligence as potentially the “biggest issue of 2028," he said, adding that AI and the economy could dominate a future presidential campaign.

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