Millions of Americans are looking to Tuesday's midterm elections with heightened anticipation or anxiety. At this point, we can expect at least some portion of the nation to have its political confidence — and perhaps even its sense of security — tested in the days and weeks ahead. That test could also continue for some time to come.
The first place to look for elevated anxiety about the midterms would be among those voters most loyal to President Trump. He calls them MAGA, borrowing from his 2016 "Make America Great Again" theme. Alternatively, with a broad smile, he just calls them "my base." But winter may be coming.
Polling suggests that on Tuesday the midterm electoral pendulum will once again swing back against the White House incumbent — as it has in every midterm over the last 100 years with very few exceptions. More punishment for the party of the second-term president would be expected in the blue states that he lost in each of his three White House campaigns. But this fall's polls are also pointing to significant losses for Republicans in swing states and even in some of the red states Trump won all three times — often by double-digit margins.
That is why the president spent the last weekend of this campaign on making an electoral "goal line stand" for the Senate by visiting Iowa and Kansas. When Trump, then a first-time candidate, was at high tide 10 years ago, he won 31 Iowa counties that had previously voted for Democrat Barack Obama in 2008 and 2012. And as for Kansas, the historically Republican state has not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1932.
Yet Trump put live visits to Iowa and Kansas on his schedule for the final weekend, even as he did remote "tele-rallies" in 19 other states. (The Iowa-Kansas plan was briefly cancelled late in the pre-election week, then reinstated just before the weekend.) That strategy suggests Trump's political team remains focused on limiting GOP losses in what will be a tough environment for their party. Most observers, including those searching hardest for objective measurements, now predict Trump's party will lose its slim majority in the House. The consensus is that the Senate is too close to call, and it is possible the GOP could hold the majority using the tie-breaking vote to which Vice President Vance is entitled.
But precedent is not really the explanation for Trump and his party's expected defeats. Midterm elections inevitably act as referenda on current officeholders, and there is no current officeholder in the world so visible as the U.S. president — especially the Oval Office's current mega-mediagenic occupant. Put another way, presidents are the leaders and symbols of their party, but Trump has taken the personalization to another level.
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