“We gotta win the midterms,” President Donald Trump told the crowd in Iowa at the end of last month. “I’m here because we’re starting the campaign to win the midterms. That means Senate and it means House.”

Trump is, by all accounts, obsessed with the upcoming elections in November. Having been distracted by various foreign dramas, and seeing his approval ratings dip, the President aims to pivot back to a domestic mission in 2026.

If the Democrats capture the House, Trump will face noisy congressional battles and possibly impeachment

If the Democrats capture the House, Trump will face noisy congressional battles and possibly impeachment

Trump understands the stakes, hence choosing Iowa, the traditional starting place for presidential primaries, to launch this campaign. The final two years of his presidency hinge on the outcome of these elections. He sees that, without a congressional majority in both houses, his political revolution will stall or even be reversed. If the Democrats capture the House, Trump would almost certainly face another round of noisy congressional battles and, quite likely, impeachment. That would drown out the revolutionary tempo of his second administration – a repeat of the relentless Democrat-led scuppering of his first term, only with added venom.

Trump’s plan is to focus on what voters care about most: the economy. At the Iowa rally, a large banner above the President read: “LOWER PRICES, BIGGER PAYCHECKS.” He brags relentlessly about having lowered the cost of gas and is busy hyping a series of policies designed to make Americans feel good about their finances. There’s the $1,000 “Trump Account” for every child born in the US between January 1, 2025 and December 2028 and, perhaps soon, a $2,000 “tariff dividend” for every American taxpayer. Moreover, if Trump’s new nominee Kevin Warsh is installed as chairman of the Federal Reserve in May, he may well get those feel-good interest rate cuts he so badly wants.

At the same time, the Democrats are increasingly confident that, for all Trump’s salesmanship skills, lingering cost-of-living pain and anxieties about the impacts of his erratic tariff system will ensure victory for their party. They believe a giant blue wave could soon drown out Trump’s legacy once and for all. The latest Fox poll supports such a view: only 20 percent of respondents felt Trump’s economic policies had “helped”; 43 percent said they had “hurt.”

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Unfazed by her failure in 2024, Kamala Harris has launched a shiny new youth mobilization organization, “Headquarters,” to build enthusiasm ahead of the midterms. 

Democrats are also thrilled at growing concerns about the uglier side of Trump’s immigration policies. Immigration is supposed to be a winning issue for Trump. His success in stopping illegal migration across the southern border is popular. Mass deportations, however, are becoming trickier to sell to the........

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