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Who’s going to win next month’s midterm elections? Polls, ads, and interviews with voters can only tell us so much, so some political observers have gone in search of historical parallels. Low-rise skinny jeans may be out and High School Musical may no longer top the charts, but 2006 may be a portent nevertheless. That year, an unpopular Republican president embroiled in a Middle Eastern war helped Democrats win back Congress. How strong is the analogy, really? Let’s explore.

OK, I’m casting my mind back to that Pirates of the Caribbean sequel where Bill Nighy had an octopus for a face. But how similar was the political landscape?

The parallels write themselves. In 2006, George W. Bush was in the second year of his second term. He’d led the country into an intractable war of choice that spiked gas prices. Americans were unhappy, giving Bush approval marks in the 30s. And because Republicans had unified control of Congress, the political blame fell squarely on them. Each of those things is true of Donald Trump today, which has some Republicans fretting. “There’s an argument, if you look at history, that 2026 feels a lot like 2006,” Sen. Steve Daines of Montana said this........

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