We don’t mean to completely pooh-pooh all of the talk about the importance of the gerrymandering arms race that has broken out since Texas tried to lasso five more seats for the GOP.
But we should pooh-pooh it a little. Midterm elections depend on how districts are drawn, certainly, but not nearly as much as the overall political climate. Midterms are always referenda on the party in power, so how likely voters are feeling about the direction of things matters the most.
So while the red states and the blue states are busy carving their House maps into shreds like an overcooked turkey, it may be more useful to focus on the fundamentals.
One year from today will be the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, the beginning of the final push for control of Congress. Given the pace of news and the wild array of potential outcomes of any number of crises and initiatives before us, it’s easy to imagine dramatically different political climates by then as persuadable voters make their final decisions.
So what we need is a dashboard to keep track of how things are going, which is what we aim to give you today.
Let’s start with the expectations game. In 19 of the 21 midterm elections since the start of World War II, the president’s party has lost seats in the House. The two times they didn’t were in the wake of a major terrorist attack (2002) and in the midst of a failed impeachment of a popular president (1998).
Republicans won 220 seats in 2024, five more than Democrats. A shift of just three seats is sufficient for Democrats to retake the House.
The correlation between Senate elections and presidential incumbency is much weaker since not only is there more ticket splitting at the Senate level, but only a third of all Senate seats are up in a given cycle. As you’ll see in the items below about the vagaries of candidate recruitment, predicting the Senate is much more of an art than the data-driven task for the House.
But we can start with this baseline: Democrats are expected to win the House and Republicans are expected to hold the Senate. That’s subject to change and the margins will matter a great deal for what the last two years of the Trump presidency look like, but that is, as the bookmakers would say, the chalk.
With that in mind, here are three numbers you can watch to get a sense of which team is going to finish in the money:
Presidential job approval: As of this writing, President Trump’s job approval average stands at 41 percent favorable, 53.6 percent unfavorable for a net score of negative 12.6 points.
In a word: woof.
There are few iron laws in politics, but one of them is that unpopular presidents’ parties are punished in midterm elections. Those two exceptions we mentioned earlier, George W. Bush and Bill Clinton, were both very popular at the time, while the biggest losers, Barack Obama in 2010, Harry Truman in 1946 and Clinton in 1994 were all badly underwater, like Trump is now.
Joe Biden proved that the correlation is directional, though, not a tight index. Biden’s numbers in 2022 were similarly miserable to Trump’s, and while his party got a spanking, it was not nearly the whooping many, particularly Republicans, expected.
So perhaps it’s better not to think of the president’s net job approval rating as an index, but something of a barometer. It’s more important to know whether Trump is doing better or worse a year from now compared to his current standing than what the number is on its own.
But if he is anything like 41 percent and 13 points underwater by then, the chances that Republicans can gerrymander their way into saving their House majority will be slim to none. Conversely, a modest improvement to, say, 45 percent, could open the door to a real goal-line stand for the GOP.
Special elections: As Iowa Democrats may soon learn, the results of special elections are not predictive of regular elections. Just because you can win a low-turnout contest in an off year doesn’t mean that even the exact same seat will go the same way with the regular electorate even a few months later.
But that doesn’t mean that special elections don’t have something to show us about what’s likely to happen next year.
According to the race watchers at The Downballot, Democrats have so far this year been outperforming Kamala Harris’s 2024 showing in districts with special elections by an average of 15.7 points.
In some cases that means flipping red seats, and in others, like this week’s contests in Florida, it means running up the score. But whatever the outcome now, it can tell us a great deal about the all-important question for next year: Which party has the most intense core voters.
In 2021, for example, Republicans showed substantial improvements over Trump’s 2020 presidential performance, particularly in the off-year contests in blue states Virginia and New Jersey. In the immediate aftermath of the Jan. 6 attack, the GOP brand was in the dumpster, but as time passed and an evidently dispirited and divided Democratic Party suffered from a pandemic hangover, things got better and better for the Republicans. By this time four years ago, Republicans were running well ahead of where Trump had finished in 2020.
The gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey confirmed the trend in November 2021, outpacing Trump’s prior performance by about 7 points each. As time went on, though, the environment seemed to cool for Republicans. In special House elections ahead of the big vote in 2022, Democrats started to turn things around. If you were looking for signs that the Republican wave had crested too soon for that cycle, you would have found it there.
We’ll track the margin for the Democrats this time around for signs of building or slowing momentum.
Retirements: This last one should always be served with a grain of salt, but it may help add some savor if the other indicators are unclear. The rule of thumb is that if a party sees a mass exodus of its members in Congress, that’s a bad augury.
So far, 25 House members — 15 Republicans and 10 Democrats — have announced they won’t seek reelection next year. Some are retiring, others are running for different offices. Compare that to the previous midterm in 2022, when 49 members — 31 Democrats and 18 Republicans bowed out — or 2018 when 52 headed for the exits — 34 Republicans and 18 Democrats.
In both cases, the retirement lists pointed to the eventual outcomes.
The Senate casualty list gets more attention because the decisions are more consequential in races where candidate quality matters almost as much as partisanship. But we’ll be keeping a close eye on the House number because it is a kind of crowdsourced estimate of the overall political climate.
Retirements are both a result and cause of a challenging cycle for a party. Incumbents know their districts best and can be canaries in the electoral coal mines, but those retirements may also put seats in play that would otherwise have been preserved.
We would expect to see the overall number increase to at least 40, while the rough partisan gap is maintained. In a midterm year, the party in power almost always sees more retirements. There can be exceptions when the balance of power is lopsided, like the 2014 contest when Republican departures outnumbered the Democrats 25 to 16. But with the House so narrowly divided, the partisan gap should be telling.
If Republicans keep their current deficit, roughly 50 percent more retirements than the Democrats, that would be a sign of a typically lousy midterm year for the in party. Anything greater than that would be a tsunami warning while anything closer to parity could be another indicator of a strong showing for the incumbent party
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NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Trump Job Performance
Average Approval: 41 percent
Average Disapproval: 53.6 percent
Net Score -12.6 points
Change from two weeks ago: ↑ 0.6 points
Change from one month ago: ↓ 2.4 points
[Average includes: Emerson College 45 percent approve – 47 percent disapprove; Quinnipiac University 37 percent approve -55 percent disapprove; AP/NORC 45 percent approve – 53 percent disapprove; Ipsos/Reuters 40 percent approve – 54 percent disapprove; American Research Group 38 percent approve – 59 percent disapprove]
Poll: Just the facts…
Is it acceptable for journalists in their work to express their support for the following:
Always/Usually Sometimes Rarely/Never
The communities they cover: 51 percent; 34 percent; 14 percent
Their political beliefs: 13 percent; 30 percent; 56 percent
Their religious beliefs: 13 percent; 29 percent; 57 percent
[Pew Research Center survey of 9,397 adults, April 14-20]
ON THE SIDE: LOVE YOUR MOTHERHOOD
Psychologist Jean Twenge dives into the data on motherhood for The Atlantic: “When I was deciding whether to have children, in the early 2000s, most of what I read about the prospect was negative. Articles detailed the sleep deprivation, the physical challenges of pregnancy, the sheer overwhelmingness of motherhood. If you want to be happy, these writers warned, don’t have children. You might not want to get married, either—after all, marriage, research suggested, mostly benefits men. … What we found contradicts the negative messages that I had come across: Married mothers are actually happier than unmarried women and married women without children. In the survey, 19 percent of married mothers described themselves as ‘very happy,’ compared with 11 percent of married women without children, 13 percent of unmarried mothers, and 10 percent of unmarried women without children. Married mothers were also more likely to say that life is enjoyable most or all of the time than the other three groups.”
PRIME CUTS
Newsom’s clout on the line, California sets up costly redistricting fight: NYT: “Over the next two months, Democratic and Republican donors are expected to funnel as much as $200 million into a California ballot fight that could heavily shape which party wins control of the U.S. House next year. … In just over two months, each side could raise well over $100 million, which is what Mr. [Gavin] Newsom’s advisers are privately targeting. That money began to be spent en masse on Tuesday, with both sides releasing dueling ads and reserving more than $10 million in airtime in the coming weeks. They are scrambling now, knowing that ballots will be sent to voters in about a month. … Given that a single competitive House race can cost more than $40 million, the opportunity to substantially swing the dynamics of nine districts for three election cycles makes financial sense to big donors. And California ballot measures have no contribution limits.”
Trump may try to tip New York mayoral race to Cuomo: NYT: “Advisers to President Trump have discussed the possibility of giving Mayor Eric Adams of New York City a position in the administration as a way to clear the field in November’s mayoral election and damage the chances of the Democratic front-runner, Zohran Mamdani, according to three people with knowledge of the discussions. The talks have also involved finding a possible place in the administration for the Republican candidate, Curtis Sliwa. The goal, the people said, would be to give former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo a better chance of defeating Mr. Mamdani in November’s general election. … Those New Yorkers have been frantically searching for any way to halt the rise of the Mr. Mamdani, a 33-year-old state assemblyman and democratic socialist who they fear will sour the city’s business climate, and have discussed potentially offering the mayor public or private sector jobs to encourage him to drop out.”
Spanberger strives to be ‘the anti-Mamdani: WSJ: “Abigail Spanberger is favored to take back the Virginia governor’s mansion for the Democrats this November. Her bigger test may be taking back her own party. Sitting in a funky bookstore cafe … on a recent afternoon, Spanberger said she hopes her election will send a message of normality to the rest of the country. ‘That we don’t want any more of the chaos,’ she said, leaning forward in her chair. ‘That we want people who are focused on serving.’ But the most important message Spanberger sends, in an election that will be closely scrutinized as a bellwether of the second Trump presidency, could be to Democrats. The nomination of a democratic socialist, Zohran Mamdani, for mayor of New York City has seeded a narrative that the party’s left wing is on the march—a narrative that Republicans have eagerly embraced to paint Democrats as radical.”
GOP looks to Hinson to keep Iowa red after Ernst retirement: The Hill: “Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-Iowa) launched her campaign for Senate on Tuesday, hours after Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) announced she would not seek reelection in next year’s midterm elections. … Hinson was first elected to Congress in 2020, ousting former Rep. Abby Finkenauer (D-Iowa) in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District. Prior to serving in Congress, Hinson was a member of Iowa’s state house. The congresswoman began her career as a broadcast journalist in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. … The race for Ernst’s seat is quickly becoming one of the most closely watched Senate races of the cycle. The nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report had rated her seat as ‘likely Republican’ before news of Ernst’s retirement broke.”
Another blue-collar progressive joins the race to take on Collins: Politico: “Another Democrat is jumping into the crowded race to oust Republican Sen. Susan Collins. Maine brewery owner Dan Kleban, 48, announced in a kickoff video Wednesday that he is mounting a Senate bid. … Senate Democrats are targeting Maine in their long-shot campaign to take back the Senate, and many top Democrats are encouraging Gov. Janet Mills to enter the race. Mills has said she is ‘seriously considering’ a run and will make a decision by mid-November. [Sen Bernie] Sanders-endorsed oyster farmer Graham Platner and former End Citizens United Vice President Jordan Wood are also vying for the Democratic Senate nomination in Maine.”
A different Sununu eyes New Hampshire Senate: NYT: “Former Senator John E. Sununu, a member of a prominent Republican political dynasty, is considering a run to reclaim the U.S. Senate seat after months of courtship from party leaders. … He has been in touch with Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, as well as former Senator Cory Gardner, who recently stepped down as chairman of the leading Senate Republican super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund. White House officials also see Mr. Sununu as a potentially strong candidate. … The recruitment effort has included polling on the race commissioned by national Republicans for Mr. Sununu after Senator Jeanne Shaheen, the Democratic incumbent, announced this year that she was retiring, according to a person with knowledge of the survey.”
SHORT ORDER
Kennedy grandson among potential replacements for retiring N.Y. Rep. Nadler — The Hill
Sen. Alex Padilla opens door to California gubernatorial run — KRCA
States jockey for top spot on Democratic presidential primary calendar — The Hill
2026 midterms projected to set new advertising record as spending soars — CNBC
TABLE TALK: STAR LORD
“The problem I have with Colorado, one of the big problems, they do mail-in voting. They do all mail-in voting. So they have automatically crooked elections.” — President Trump explaining why he ordered the Space Force headquarters moved from Colorado to Alabama
We hold which truths, now?
“The notion that rights don’t come from laws and don’t come from the government, but come from the creator — that’s what the Iranian government believes. … And they do it because they believe that they understand what natural rights are from their creator. So the statement that our rights do not come from our laws or our governments is extremely troubling.” — Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine (D) at a confirmation hearing for Riley Barnes for a State Department post
Mr. Warmth
“Governor of what?” — Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) sneering at the announcement from former Speaker of the Florida House Paul Renner that he was joining the GOP primary to succeed the term-limited incumbent
MAILBAG
“I was so excited to hear ‘kayfabe’ mentioned in your article. It is refreshing to have some credibility lent to that word because it fits Trump more than any other modern president. Maybe if we viewed his administration like an episode of Monday Night Raw we might understand more.” — Michael Nace, Mechanicsburg, Pa.
Mr. Nace,
I don’t know who first used the word to describe Trump’s political style, but way back in 2016 it was already in the atmosphere — probably because Trump himself had very recently been a performer in what was known when I was a boy as “rasslin.’”
Kayfabe is the word for keeping up the melodrama of professional wrestling outside of the ring, probably a kind of pig-latinized form of “be fake.” In its benign form, it’s just a way to give a performance verisimilitude. You don’t want to see the Easter Bunny on his smoke break, and neither do you want to see Sargent Slaughter and Nikolai Volkoff hanging out at the bar after the show. Suspension of disbelief and all that. If you’re a kid who believes pro wrestling is real or an adult who just likes the spectacle in the same way other people enjoy the real phonies on reality TV, the kayfabe adds to the experience.
The political version of never breaking character has some more unfortunate consequences.
Kurt Vonnegut wrote, “We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.” Faced with the psychic pain of cognitive dissonance, our minds look for ways to resolve it. And that means that even the most jaded, cynical political grifter may come to believe her or his own performance, especially if they live, as most Americans do, in some version of a bubble.
Adam Smith explained his idea of the “invisible hand” that guides human conduct and relationships in part by describing the innate desire of the members of our species “not only to be loved, but to be lovely.” Nobody wants to always play the heel, so we find ways to say that the heel is actually the hero. Presto-change-o, behavior that was once performative trolling can become sincere and appear virtuous to oneself or one’s supporters.
Consider the trolling last week of Trump and his supporters over claims that Trump was very ill or actually even dead. Democrats were doing to Republicans what Republicans had done to Joe Biden in exaggerating evidence in an elderly person of severe health problems. It’s part of the MAGA playbook more broadly, in which any claim, no matter how wild, is repeated ad nauseam until it produces a wave of online engagement large enough to push itself into traditional media outlets.
Done correctly, as it was in this case, it can even force the target to respond to the claims. As Trump once forced Obama to show his birth certificate, over Labor Day weekend, the online left made Trump declare that he was, well, not dead. How many of them were being pure trolls? How many were in the Trumpian mode of “seriously but not literally,” spinning up specific health questions in service of a “larger truth” that Trump is the oldest person ever elected president who often talks nonsense and frequently appears to be in poor health? And how many just outright believed it?
More importantly, how many started at trolling and ended up convincing themselves? Like I said, Starbucks doesn’t care whether you enjoy your Pumpkin Spice Latte ironically or sincerely, as long as you buy it.
Oh for a day when people in politics go back to pretending they are good …
All best,
c
You should email us! Write to WHOLEHOGPOLITICS@THEHILL.COM with your tips, kudos, criticisms, insights, rediscovered words, wonderful names, recipes, and, always, good jokes. Please include your real name — at least first and last — and hometown. Make sure to let us know in the email if you want to keep your submission private. My colleague, Meera Sehgal, and I will look for your emails and then share the most interesting ones and my responses here. Clickety clack!
FOR DESSERT: FASHION ICON
WTNH: “Doogie Sandtiger decided to do things a little differently — he collects Crocs. ‘This is what life is about,’ Sandtiger said. ‘Life is about having fun, living — simple as that.’ Sandtiger learned that he would need at least 1,000 pairs to be considered for the record — and he did just that. He eventually reached out to Guinness World Records and officially set the record in November of 2024 for the largest collection of Crocs. … He was able to officially announce the feat this week, per Guinness World Records rules. … Sandtiger said he set the record in a museum in his hometown of Wethersfield, where he displayed his entire collection. He also said he plans to donate his World Record plaque. Sandtiger, who estimates he’s spent several hundred thousand of dollars on the collection, said he wants to continue growing it and eventually open up a museum called the ‘Crocsium.’”
