Translated by Carlotta Faraci
On November 3rd, American citizens are heading to the polls to elect the entire House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. Electoral result of midterm, as well as being an excellent barometer for gauging the political climate in the United States, will also bring about tangible changes to the balance of power in the country. Things don’t seem to be going well for Trump and the Republican Party.
November’s elections
Since Donald Trump’s election in 2024, the entire American Congress’ majority is republican: 53 seats on 100 at the Senate and 219 seats on 435 at the House of Representatives. When, on November 3rd midterm elections will be held, a real turning point in the four-year terms of presidency, the entire legislative landscape could change. In fact, it emerges from the polls a series of data which could worry Republican Party and President Trump.
As of 27th of September, the latest polls held from Washington Post point out that Trump’s popularity rating is at an all-time low. What is penalizing the President’s standing is not only foreign policy - where American’s fear that war in Iran will go on for a long time still dominates - but, surprisingly, economy as well. Indeed, polls highlights how, for the first time in the latest decade, Americans perceive the Democrats as being better suited to leading the country’s economy.
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
In addition to Trump’s individual ratings, although these do not determine the outcome of the congressional elections, the GOP is also concerned about the polls regarding seats in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
Concerning the ratings, democrats’ victory on most seats is given between the 60 and the 80% by the biggest pollsters. Should this result materialize, it would deeply change freedom of maneuver of Trump’s administration over the next two years.
As well as generally finding it more difficult to get its legislation passed, a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives would cause the President several headaches. It would put him in the firing line for impeachment – the third such attempt against Trump.
The House, in fact, has the exclusive right among the two legislative branches to initiate impeachment proceedings by a simple majority; in this regard, several members of the Democratic Party have already expressed their intention to investigate Trump’s actions over the past two years in depth. One section of the party appears to support the idea of ‘sweeping’ investigations into the President, delving into issues ranging from his handling of the war in Iran, to the Epstein case, his family’s business dealings, the construction of the White House ballroom, and so on. Another faction within the party, led by the potential 2028 presidential candidate Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, is pushing for a focus on ‘more concrete issues’ that affect Americans more directly: from water and power cuts caused by data centers to tariffs and private healthcare.
Now, although this scenario would, theoretically, be feasible and would likely be supported by public opinion in the wake of the Epstein case, the actual likelihood that an impeachment would lead to the President’s conviction is very low.
SENATE
The wild card in this case is the Senate. Trump has already been impeached twice by the House: the first time in 2019, on charges of making military aid to Ukraine conditional on the opening of an investigation into Joe Biden; the second time in 2021, for his role on the 6th of January storming of the Capitol. In both instances, the Senate – which requires a two-thirds majority to convict a President – acquitted him.
An interesting trend that emerged in these two cases, however, is the breaking of the taboo that informally prevented senators from voting against a president from their own party in an impeachment case. In the first instance, in fact, Mitt Romney – the presidential candidate defeated by Obama in 2012 – became the first politician to vote against his own party’s president, drawing considerable criticism from the right. In Trump’s second impeachment trial, as many as seven Republican senators voted to convict him. Given that the second charge – that of being morally and politically responsible for the storming of the Capitol – was probably perceived as more serious by senators on both sides, it seems clear that not everything can be forgiven in a President, not even by his own political faction.
In the mid-term elections, the Senate, unlike the House of Representatives, is much more evenly balanced. Predictions swing back and forth between the two sides quite fluidly, but the margin remains narrow in terms of seats. What is certain is that, to have a real chance of victory, the Democrats must win all those seats that have been Republican for the past four years but are now considered uncertain – such as Alaska, Ohio, Maine and North Carolina – and hold on firmly to Democratic seats where a positive outcome is by no means guaranteed.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE DEM CAMP
A particularly interesting aspect of these elections is the increasingly significant presence of candidates from the socialist wing of the Democratic Party. Among the Democrats seats’ whose retention is by no means a foregone conclusion is that of Michigan, whose candidate, Abdul El-Sayed, is a perfect example of the group of young social democrats who are emerging on the US political scene. El-Sayed, an epidemiologist with a PhD from Oxford, is part of Bernie Sanders’ roster – that is, those politicians who, in contrast to the party establishment, advocate for pro-Palestinian causes, higher taxes on the wealthiest, and free healthcare for all American citizens. In addition to El-Sayed, other congressional candidates representing these views include Angie Nixon, standing for a seat in Florida, and Justin Pearson, a Tennessee state politician and activist who is deeply committed to workers’ issues and strongly advocates for greater regulation of firearms.
This socialist wave in Congress, should it be even partially elected, will clash with the moderate (and far more entrenched in Washington) wing of the Democrats on certain issues. Recently, three pro-Israel Democratic MPs have been appointed to new posts on the Foreign Affairs Committee, and one of them, Jared Moskowitz, will chair the Sub-Committee on the Middle East, likely taking over as chair of the entire committee should the Democrats win a majority in the House of Representatives. The issue of Gaza will certainly be one of the main sources of division within the party: with the Democratic old guard remaining very loyal to their Israeli ally and to AIPAC, whilst the younger social democrats are closer to the Palestinian cause. But it will not be the only one. The Democratic Party is, in fact, divided on several fronts: both tactically – where it is unable to unanimously agree on a strategy to oppose Trump – and politically, with an increasingly marked divide between those who support a more moderate vision and those who favor a more radical one. This latter aspect is also reflected in the choice of a presidential candidate for the upcoming 2028 election; the party is, in fact, split between factions backing more centrist candidates such as Gavin Newsom or Josh Shapiro, and those backing less compromising candidates such as Ocasio-Cortez or Ro Khanna.
Despite these divisions, the Democratic Party is enjoying a winning streak in state by-elections – that is, elections held to fill seats in state legislatures that have become vacant between regular elections due to the resignation or death of the incumbent. Of the thirty-one seats that have changed hands in a state legislature since President Donald Trump returned to the White House, the Democrats have won 100 per cent of them.
THE STATE OF PLAY FOR THE REPUBLICANS
Even the President’s own party is facing considerable internal difficulties. Or rather, Trump himself is facing difficulties within his own party. The two Republican primaries in South Carolina and Oklahoma, won by the candidates backed by Trump – Darline Graham, sister of Lindsay, who passed away in July, and Mike Mazzei respectively – have broken a run of defeats that had begun to undermine the President’s grip on the party. The candidates he had backed were defeated in at least ten primaries this year – six in August alone – with heavy losses in Iowa, Georgia, Tennessee, Florida and Wyoming. According to a CNN tally, those ten defeats equal the total number suffered in 2018, 2020 and 2024 combined. Despite this, in primaries where a Trump-backed candidate lost, the winners were almost always other politicians supported by the President, who insists he remains firmly in control of the GOP.
Ultimately, the midterm results appear to be tilting in the Democrats’ favour. The administration’s heavy-handed foreign policies and various domestic blunders seem set to take their toll on the Trump administration, whose military adventurism and (poor) domestic management have come across as a series of confused decisions, lacking a clear strategy. Despite this, President Trump continues steadfastly along his chosen path: he dismisses the results of his approval rating polls, rejects agreements with Iran by claiming that the United States is winning the war with ease, and ponders sporting events held in unlikely venues, such as the UFC event at the White House in July and, more recently, the idea of building a baseball ground in a national park. With less than two months to go before the election, the administration is clearly in trouble, and it is up to the Democratic Party to deliver the coup de grâce.
Mondo Internazionale APS - Riproduzione Riservata ® 2026