Trump: A Feral Lame Duck

Regardless of the 2026 outcome, Donald Trump will become increasingly toxic for Republicans in 2028.  Trump becoming a lame duck is inevitable.  But even that won't stop Donald Trump while he holds power in the White House.

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How will historians view the 2026 midterm elections? My guess is that many of them will write that "the Affordability Crisis" helped save democracy. Without a dumb war and high diesel prices, Donald Trump's autocratic behavior might have been validated at the polls. Imagine a world where 2027 and 2028 were more sinister versions of 2025. Look instead for a neutered beast.

For all the talk about the House and Senate, these midterms may be remembered by history for a race for governor—a campaign that featured the most disgusting political ad in the history of television. Echoing Roy Cohn's maxim to never, ever admit error, Donald Trump and JD Vance (Vivek Ramaswamy's close friend and Yale Law classmate) doubled down on a child molester who raped both his daughter and, later, his stepdaughter. The latter was 12-year-old Amy Acton, now expected to be the governor-elect of Ohio. JD and Vivek are opportunists for the ages, but they lack what Jonathan Martin calls Trump's "Friar's Club" ability to give their perfidy a comedic edge.

This was a moment of truth for the GOP. In the first 48 hours, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine, Senate candidate Jon Husted and most other state Republicans called for the ad to be pulled. "When you know that the husband of the mom was indicted by a grand jury after hearing testimony, and then he took off along with the mother," DeWine said, "it makes it more wrong."

But reports of Ramaswamy's political death may be at least slightly exaggerated. His $4 million ad buy for this beyond-the-pale commercial could make the political climate so toxic that turnout plummets. If that happens, and Ramaswamy squeaks through, Ohio will be the place where decency went to die. If, on the other hand, Vivek goes down in flames, he might take his pal JD with him, harming his chances in 2028.

The latter seems a better bet this year. It's grim out there for the GOP now. Even Republican spinners admit privately that they will lose the House. If Democrats take the House but not the Senate, the outcome will, sadly, be covered as BTE (Better than Expected) for the GOP, even though that split result would have been seen as a win for Democrats just a few weeks ago. Sorry to say, measuring outcomes against expectations is just how the media rolls.

Then there's the optimistic but hardly dreamy-eyed view. A Blue Wave in both chambers would effectively end the Trump Era, stripping him of the unique power he had over the GOP and boot-lickers everywhere. Trump would still have plenty of ways to hassle and hurt his enemies, but fear would dissipate, leaving only loathing. It sounds like a risky thing to say about one of the greatest comeback artists in American history: The man has no path back this time. Trump has already tried war, the classic way of rallying the public. It didn't work. So he'll be a feral lame duck, waddling furiously to and fro, his webbed feet firmly in his mouth, honking into the abyss.

A big Democratic win will bring a lot more change in Washington than many people realize. The Trump White House will try to use the 2024 Supreme Court decision in the immunity case to resist congressional subpoenas. But the immunity applies only to Trump, not staff. So look for congressional committees to haul Trump Administration witnesses to Capitol Hill to probe the breathtaking corruption that voters now put at the top of their list of concerns. We'll all get bored with the fights over subpoenas, but the investigations will proceed nonetheless. As Republican Sen. Rick Scott said last week, Pete Hegseth and RFK Jr. won't likely survive.

With control, Democrats will enact an ambitious agenda, borrowed in part from Project 2029 (their answer to Trump's Project 2025). The Democratic program includes:

• Reinstating expired Obamacare subsidies.
• Rolling back Medicare cuts that are scheduled to kick in just after the election.
• Restoring the expanded Child Tax Credit that steeply cut child poverty under Joe Biden.
• Modifying or ending Trump's illegal tariff regime, which could lower prices.
• Reinstating sanctions on Russia and restoring military aid to Ukraine.
• Using oversight hearings to enact a tough new ethics bill.
• Banning stock trading by federal officials.
• Attacking the "Annoyance Economy" by regulating or banning junk fees.

That's just for starters. Republicans looking to 2028 are likely to defy Trump much more than in the past. Whether they will join Democrats in enough numbers to override Trump's vetoes will be one of the running dramas of the next two years. And he might even sign several of the bills—beyond tariffs, he has no strong feelings about policy—and make them part of his legacy. Either way, he'll continue to throw hissy fits, but no one will care, much less quake.

Of course none of this happens if the Democrats don't win big. When assessing why things are looking good for them, the most important data point is that tens of millions from Elon Musk and other billionaires spent in late September and early October have not moved the needle. That could change this week, but time is running out.

Will Trump declare an emergency and send federal agents into election centers (where votes are counted)? That's illegal under three federal laws, one of which was signed by Abraham Lincoln. Trump doesn't care, of course. He told Eric Cortellessa of TIME that he wouldn't rule it out. If he declared an emergency over tariffs, there's a good chance he will do the same over elections, whose integrity he trashes almost every day.

So look for ICE agents to swarm Latino neighborhoods, where many undocumented Latinos are already afraid to leave their homes. Large numbers of them have relatives who are citizens and potential voters but don't want to draw attention to their families. Turnout in that community, which seems to be moving en masse back to the Democrats, could be surprisingly light. That would hurt James Talarico.

If the House is gone for Republicans, saving the Senate is an easier lift for them. While House races are historically connected to the approval ratings of the president and the condition of the economy. By contrast, Senate candidates win or lose based on their candidate skills, their money, and the peculiarities of their states. In 2018, the first Trump midterm election, Democrats gained 41 seats in the House but lost two in the Senate.

This year features a dozen key Senate races. North Carolina will flip, and Georgia will stay Democratic, but polls in ten states—Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota, Texas, Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa, New Hampshire, Alaska and Maine—are all within the margin of error. The East Coast polls close first on Election Night. If Chris Pappas wins early in New Hampshire, it's a good night for Democrats; if Annie Adams beats Darline Graham in South Carolina, it's a great one.

These close states are already the devil's workshop. Trump seems to be focused on not certifying close elections, even though courts have taken a dim view of that. Attorney General Todd Blanche is a legal maximalist; in the spring of 2024, I watched him slime Judge Juan Merchan in the Stormy Daniels felony trial with an endless stream of preposterous motions. Now, at Trump's urging, he's trying to argue that the Alaska Senate results should not be certified because incumbent Republican Senator Dan Sullivan is facing not just a strong Democrat (Mary Peltola) but an independent by the name of Dan Sullivan. Blanche claims the confusion should invalidate the election—but only if Sullivan loses, of course.

If the election in Texas is as close as anticipated, there's a chance that Texas Governor Greg Abbott won't certify Talarico's election. If a couple of other states are also hung up in litigation, control of the Senate—and all that entails—could be delayed for months. A constitutional crisis may be much closer than we think.

My grandparents suffered through wartime rations that included limits on filling their gas tanks. Everyone grumbled, but it was worth the hardship to defeat fascism. The same thing goes for today's surging diesel prices. Yes, they hurt ordinary people who deserve better. I feel for them. But think of inflation, a short war, and even hypocrisy over the Epstein files as the price we pay for restoring democracy.

Jonathan Alter, a contributing editor of the Washington Monthly, is a former senior editor and columnist at Newsweek, a filmmaker, journalist, political analyst, and the publisher of the Substack Old Goats with Jonathan Alter where this piece also appears also appears. He is the author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life. His latest book is American Reckoning: Inside Trump's Trial--And My Own.