Thirteen months are left until the American elections on November 3, 2026. And although, according to the well -known cliché, “in politics one year is equivalent to a century”, the US president, amid efforts to solve his Middle East and Ukrainian, has always had the Ukrainian.
The election campaign, not governance, is often Trump’s natural field of action. He has no right, by the Constitution, to claim a third presidential term, but the 2026 elections may deprive the Republican power in Congress, as they do not have a strong majority in the two bodies.
In the House of Representatives, for 435 seats, Republicans hold 219 seats and the Democrats 213 (three seats remain vacant). In the Senate, out of a total of 100 seats, Republicans hold 54 seats and Democrats 44, while the two senators who have been elected as independent are drawn up with the Democrats.
Usually, the intermediate elections favor a party that does not control the White House, and for Trump the possibility of Democrats recovering Congress’s control of the risk of not only ending his legislative agenda, but also calling for parliamentary investigations. In Trump’s first presidential term in the 2018 Congress, Republicans suffered a heavy defeat to the House of Representatives and the Democrats broke the “triple domination” of the Republicans, who controlled the US and the USSR.
First the security
In the battle for the 2026 interim elections, Trump realizes that the issue of security and order is a privileged field for him, which is confirmed by polls (Associated Press, September 11-19). The percentage of Americans who approve his handling of crime is ranging from 46% to 53%, while 60% criticizes his handling of the economy (Gallup, September 22). So by no means, last Sunday, Trump, citing a decline in crime, called for the National Guard to develop in Oregon – although there were no riots in that state. A similar tactic had been implemented last June in Los Angeles to suppress protests against expulsion of immigrants, and last August in Washington, again on the pretext of law enforcement and order.
On Tuesday, Trump and the Minister of War Pitt Hegsheth They gathered 800 US generals and admirals in Virginia in Virginia “To encourage them.” The unprecedented movement, which the military faced with calmness, is recorded in an attempt to demonstrate a fist – unnecessary, according to analysts, but is in line with the spirit of tramping.
Operations with the assistance of the Army to maintain law and order are just one of the weapons that Trump intends to use in the face of the 2026 intermediate elections. Concentration of resources by the Democrats.
Trump has already requested to redesign the Maps of the “Gerrymandering” in Texas and other “red” (from the color of the Republican) states and is pushing the officials of these states to approve new maps that will secure more parliamentary seats.
At the same time, it threatens to take legal action against states such as California, a Democratic stronghold, where the maps of the constituencies consider not to favor Republicans. The US president has repeatedly argued that the letter voting and the voting engines are unreliable and has publicly threatened to abolish both letter vote and electronic vote. He has also proposed to hold a National Republican Congress before the 2026 interim elections to mobilize the base of voters and to determine the party agenda. After all, by order of Trump, the Minister of Justice PAM Bodies Investigations have already begun on any illegalities in Actblue, the basic democratic party’s resource gathering platform, which was founded in 2004.
White House officials point out that the 2024 election campaign will serve as a manual for the 2026 campaign: Emphasis will be placed on non -traditional Republican electoral bodies, including workers from different social backgrounds, as well as younger groups, such as the younger groups.
Key to everyday life
According to the Timothy Gartona prominent historian and columnist of “Guardian”, the key to the intermediate elections will be the issues of everyday life. In the economy, Trump’s duties are already leading to prices, while the president’s “big beautiful bill” (passed last July) is expected to increase the already huge US debt, exceeding 37 trillion dollars. However, until a debt crisis really arises, these macroeconomic risks, Garton adds, remain abstract for most American voters. The big question is whether the negative consequences of Trump policy on the economy will be felt by voters before the interim elections.
In these circumstances, the Democratic concern, in order to prevail in the 2026 elections, should be to follow his advice James Carville, former adviser to the president Bill Clinton and the Democratic guru, and focus on the issues of everyday life that concerns households. Only in this way will they show that they are really interested in the simple workers and the middle -class Americans, whose support has been lost in the last 30 years.
