President Donald Trump is going to be the main issue in the 2026 midterms, but experts disagree as to whether the impending electoral disaster will be experienced by the Republicans or the Democrats. Now an election expert is shedding light on the situation.
“It’s a competitive situation in both the Senate and the House,” DDHQ’s chief elections analyst Geoffrey Skelley told The Hill's Julia Mueller on Sunday. He later added that “the big question is: will the Iranian conflict … will people being concerned about that ratcheting up, is that going to create reverberations in things like the generic ballot that signal ‘OK, Democrats’ advantage is growing again’?”
Skelley also pointed out that Democrats’ lead increases when there is bad news about Iran and gas prices go up, but shrinks when the conflict subsides and gas prices drop.
“The challenge for Republicans is the Iranian conflict is heating up again,” Skelley argued.
Mueller reported, “Democrats are favored to win the House but are slight underdogs in the fight for the Senate with 100 days to go before the midterms, according to the latest forecast from Decision Desk HQ (DDHQ).”
She added, “Both parties are dealing with headwinds as they head into the home stretch of the high-stakes election.” While Republicans are worried about the Iran war, oil prices and lingering high inflation, Democrats have their own internal issues with which to grapple.
“Wins by democratic socialist and antiestablishment candidates in House primaries across the country have sparked concerns from centrists that their party will be characterized as too extreme,” Mueller reported. “It’s a line of attack being emphasized by President Trump and GOP leaders in Washington working to convince voters not to hand power to the Democratic Party.”
She continued, “The result is a situation 100 days out that gives both parties reasons to be hopeful and worried.”
The polls are similarly concerning for the Democrats.
“At this point in the 2018 cycle, when Democrats won big in the so-called blue wave, the generic ballot showed Democrats up by an average of 7 points or 8 points, DDHQ said, which is double the current edge,” Mueller wrote.
She added, “With just more than three months until Election Day, the tight forecasts make races like the Michigan Senate fight must-wins for both parties, adding urgency to the handful of toss-up contests that could decide control on Capitol Hill.”
The New York Times similarly reported on Democrats’ perceived incompetence on Sunday.
“At the center is Ken Martin, the 53-year-old party chairman, who has found himself increasingly isolated, gripped by the fear that he will lose his job and relying on a vanishingly small circle of people he trusts, according to interviews with more than two dozen Democrats, including current and former D.N.C. officials and members,” wrote The New York Times’ Shane Goldmacher and Reid J. Epstein on Sunday. “Most of them spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the party’s troubled state of affairs.”
Goldmacher and Epstein continued, “Mr. Martin’s fraying nerves are showing. In a pique of frustration in early July, he threw his phone at the desk of a junior aide while upbraiding the person. The phone-tossing incident resulted in a formal complaint to the D.N.C.’s human resources department.”
