'Fork in the road': Why the 2026 midterms could be 'Trump's wildest ride yet'
Intelligencer writer Ed Kilgore said it’s not “likely” that President Donald Trump can use pure extremism to rev up the MAGA vote in time for the midterms.
“Within moments of his second inauguration, Trump pursued a course of unprecedented extremism that suggested he would be fine with vast midterm losses, deliberately alienating voting blocs (Latinos, younger voters, inflation-sensitive voters) that had moved in the GOP’s direction in 2024 and exhibiting indifference to public opinion generally,” said Kilgore. “But then something surprising began happening. Trump started showing considerable personal interest in his party’s midterm prospects.”
Trump began interfering in Republican primaries to promote the most electable options by “shoving Marjorie Taylor Greene out of a Senate race,” said Kilgore, and skewing a national gerrymandering effort that increases the GOP House majority from a few seats to perhaps a dozen.
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Trump, according to Kilgore, faces the classic dilemma of all second-term presidents: “Cash in all your political capital to score policy accomplishments or help your party by pursuing cautious initiatives that could broaden its voter coalition and minimize the usual midterm losses?”
But Kilgore said Trump is looking to resolve that dilemma by refusing to choose at all between chewing up political capital to get things done and trying to win the midterms.
“He’s riding two horses past a fork in the road he refuses to acknowledge,” Kilgore said. “After violating almost every existing political (and legal) norm since his reelection, he’s now seeking to extend the wild MAGA party for at least two more years by revving up his base to a state of great excitement, cheating as much as he can, and lying about conditions in the country in order to give himself additional opportunities to keep the opposition (and the courts) off balance.”
“The scarier question is what Trump will do if (as still appears likely) his efforts fall short,” Kilgore added. “Will he simply reject the midterms results as fraudulent, as he did in 2020? Will he seek to overturn a Democratic House victory via the courts, state-election certifiers, or mass disturbances? Or will he turn to his faithful subaltern [House Speaker] Mike Johnson and instruct the outgoing Speaker to refuse to seat every Democrat who’s won a close race?”
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“And will the U.S. Supreme Court again look the other way?” Kilgore asked, citing the Republican-majority court’s frequent side with decisions empowering the Republican president. “The 2026 midterms could be Trump’s wildest ride yet.”
Read the Intelligencer article at this link.
