U.S. Midterm Elections

Analysis and arguments.

If there’s one truism in U.S. politics, it’s that voters don’t vote on foreign policy. Eggheads like me in Washington might go back and forth on what we believe the American people want from foreign policy, complete with polls that reflect our own opinions. But it is rarely, if ever, the case that foreign policy is a salient enough issue to drive voting behavior.

With his Iran war, however, President Donald Trump has made a foreign-policy choice so destructive and toxic that it has raised the ire of voters—and likely cratered his party’s chances heading into the midterm elections on Tuesday.

If there’s one truism in U.S. politics, it’s that voters don’t vote on foreign policy. Eggheads like me in Washington might go back and forth on what we believe the American people want from foreign policy, complete with polls that reflect our own opinions. But it is rarely, if ever, the case that foreign policy is a salient enough issue to drive voting behavior.

With his Iran war, however, President Donald Trump has made a foreign-policy choice so destructive and toxic that it has raised the ire of voters—and likely cratered his party’s chances heading into the midterm elections on Tuesday.

Despite this, we should be cautious about overinterpreting these results. As the horse race for the 2028 presidential election kicks off in the coming weeks, you’ll hear about the ways in which the election is a wholesale rejection of the Trump administration’s foreign-policy choices. This would be an oversimplification. What voters are incensed about is the war with Iran, not necessarily Trump’s broader rejection of the old bipartisan foreign-policy consensus.

Honestly, it’s not clear from polling or focus groups what it is that American voters want from foreign policy, other than perhaps less of it: a reduced role in the world and a policy that focuses on the needs of Americans. For Democrats in particular, then, overreading these midterms as a wholesale rejection of change in foreign policy is a mistake;........

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