Bob Sheak, Nov 9, 2026
Trump’s power will be limited but not eliminated in January when Democrats take control of both houses of Congress. Democrats do not have the power to overcome Trump’s vetoes unless at least six Republicans and all Democrats in the Congress support them on any given legislation. He still has the immunity granted him by the conservative Supreme Court.
He has so far gotten away with a steady stream of lies, questionable policies, and unlawful behavior. He is one of the worst presidents in U.S. history, if not the worst. His tariffs, his regressive tax policies, his evisceration of the federal civil service and major parts of the social safety net are all examples of his authoritarian agenda. He is also devoted to wasting taxpayer money on the reflecting pool fiasco and a stream of vanity projects like the $600 million dollar ballroom. He wants his legacy to be laden with gold. Meanwhile, he finds ways to enrich himself while millions of Americans have a hard time paying for the essentials.
The blue wave in the midterm elections show how unpopular Trump’s policies are for most Americans. The evidence is indisputable.
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How Trump and Republicans Lost the 2026 Midterm Elections, According to the AP Voter Poll
US News, Nov 4, 2026 reports on the results of a post-election poll by the Associated Press (https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2026-21-04/how-trump-and-republicans-lost-the-2026-midterm-elections-according-to-the-ap-voter-poll).
Here are the principal findings of the AP voter poll.
“After more than a decade with Donald Trump at the epicenter of U.S. politics, most voters appear exhausted and exasperated by him, according to The AP Voter Poll, a survey of midterm voters in all 50 states.
“The president’s failure to deliver on key promises — most prominently, his vows to tame inflation, which has worsened instead — clearly weighed on his fellow Republicans in Tuesday’s midterm elections for the House and the Senate. The polling shows that voters generally saw Trump as being more focused on his own fortune and gold-leafed existence than their needs.”
He initially refused to accept any personal responsibility for the electoral wipeout.
He blamed weak Republican candidates whom he promoted.
“The president also helped elevate candidates with obvious flaws, amplifying their struggles in an already challenging year. He suggested in a Tuesday evening interview with Fox News Channel that Democrats ‘fought hard’ and that the Republican base ‘didn’t like the candidates’ he had endorsed because some of his picks were not fully loyal to him.
Trump underestimated the negative effects of inflation on voters. Here’s what the AP poll identified according to
“It was impossible for GOP candidates to hide from inflation. Voters could see it clearly in their receipts from grocery stores and gasoline stations. The financial blow of an auto repair or a utility bill after a sweltering summer was inescapable. And even in Republican strongholds such as Texas, the drag caused by inflation helped Democrats.”
But inflation wasn’t all that mattered to voters.
“Voters nationwide pinned the blame on Trump for his tariffs, his war in Iran and his unfulfilled campaign promise two years ago to bring down prices.
“Asked about the impact of Trump’s policies, about two-thirds of voters nationwide said they had made the economy worse. And out of this group, about 8 in 10 said they backed the Democratic candidate.”
Corruption was a major concern
“More than half of voters nationally said government corruption was ‘crucial’ for their vote for Congress. That was a little higher than the share who said the cost of living was ‘crucial,’ a striking finding in a year when about 6 in 10 voters said they were personally ‘very concerned’ about the cost of food and groceries.
Voters saw Trump as obsessed with his own interests
“Meanwhile, despite Republicans’ suggestion that voters cared little about Trump making more than $1 billion last year from meme coins and cryptocurrency, most voters saw Trump as obsessed with his own interests. During his second term, Trump solicited donations from powerful companies to build his desired White House ballroom after having surprised the country by rapidly demolishing what had been the building’s East Wing.
“That tenor set at the top spilled over into business deals for his family and other deals by his associates involving pardons and federal policies.”
Voters want more congressional oversight
“About 7 in 10 voters said Congress was not doing enough to provide checks and balances for the presidency, including about 4 in 10 Republicans.”
“For much of the past two years, Trump acted on his own.
“Much of the Republican-controlled House and Senate barely objected to his whims. He laid off federal workers, imposed sweeping new tariffs, launched the war with Iran, remodeled Washington in gold paint, threatened the Federal Reserve, the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian Institution and bullied a bevy of longtime allies.”
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The effects of the repudiation
Bradley Blankenship writes on how Trump’s Endless Lies, Deceit, Cruelty, and Corruption Crashed Down, Nov 4, 2026 (https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/trump-corruption-lies-midterms). Bradley Blankenship is an investigative journalist and columnist as well as the founder of the Northern Kentucky Truth & Accountability Project. Here’s some of what he writes.
Most voters ignored Trump’s promise to give Americans $5,000 in cash if Republicans prevailed in the midterms.
The political effects are immense. Blankenship writes, “Although Democrats lack the two-thirds Senate majority necessary to convict and remove Trump following impeachment, they will soon possess something they have been deprived of for two years: the institutional power to investigate his administration, subpoena witnesses, compel testimony, and expose the inner workings of a political machine that has operated with extraordinary impunity.”
Blankenship is specific. “The administration’s disastrous war with Iran, coupled with a worsening cost-of-living crisis, has alienated millions of Americans. According to national exit polling conducted by SSRS for NBC News and other major news organizations, 74% of voters considered the war a crucial or major factor in their congressional vote. Nearly nine in ten identified the cost of living as a significant electoral consideration.
“Yet these failures represent only part of the story. There is also the administration’s systematic degradation of the institutions upon which American constitutional government depends: its efforts to transform the justice system into an instrument of personal and political power, its contempt for institutional independence, and its extraordinary solicitude toward powerful figures implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.”
The corruption of Trump’s stood out in the voter’s rejection of Trump and his administration. For decades, Trump has spent decades treating reality as something to be managed through the fabrication of narratives, to promote his power.
Nonetheless, Blankenship sees some reason to be hopeful.
“The congressional investigations Democrats can now initiate will not automatically restore the rule of law. But they present an opportunity to reconstruct the factual record, expose wrongdoing, and, where evidence warrants, pursue accountability.”
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Trump as the enemy of the people
Shane Goldmacher, Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman delve into Trump’s defeat in detail. Haberman and Swan are also the authors of a best-selling book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump NYT, Nov 4, 2026. (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/04/us/politics/trump-midtermslosses-republicans.html). Here’s some of what they write about why Republicans lost so badly.
“The scope of the Republican wreckage would become clear a week later.
Democrats stormed to a huge House majority and won control of the Senate, a remarkable feat powered by victories in Republican strongholds — Kansas, South Carolina, Texas — that few could have imagined a year ago.
“This account of the Republican Party’s collapse is based on interviews with more than 70 people — among them lawmakers, political strategists, party leaders, pollsters, White House officials and congressional aides — who were directly involved in the midterm elections, many of whom were granted anonymity to describe private conversations and decisions.”
“The Republicans could not overcome a president who lost the public’s trust on the economy and so much more. And what they had not counted on was an unpopular war in the Middle East — one that would close the Strait of Hormuz and push gas prices past $4 a gallon — that would rage all the way through the election.” Trump began a trade war with the entire world. There were also the reports that revealed “that Mr. Trump, his family and their close associates had used the presidency to enrich themselves brazenly. Those reports began to resonate with voters; an early October poll from Fox News showed corruption as the top voter concern.
Trump backed weak candidates.
“In North Carolina, Mr. Trump cleared the field for Michael Whatley, a former lobbyist and Republican National Committee chairman, who proved a lackluster candidate and lost to Roy Cooper, the state’s popular Democratic former governor.
“After Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina died in July, Mr. Trump supported tapping his sister, Darline, to not just replace him temporarily but also to run for a full six-year term. In doing so, he elevated an inexperienced candidate with no fund-raising base, and she went on to lose in a state that had not elected a Democrat to the Senate since 1998.
The NYT journalists continue. “But no candidate proved more costly to the party than Ken Paxton, the scandal-ridden Texas attorney general. Mr. Trump endorsed him over Senator John Cornyn, the Republican incumbent, ignoring a year of warnings that Mr. Paxton would put the seat in jeopardy. Republicans were ultimately forced to spend close to $300 million in Texas — money that could have gone to shore up candidates in other states. Mr. Paxton lost by 12 points.
“Elon Musk spent more than $450 million to aid Republicans in the midterms, much of it in Texas to try to save Mr. Paxton. The super PAC he funded spent tens of millions on ads attacking the Democratic nominee, Mr. Talarico, for his support of transgender rights, mirroring a line of attack that the Trump team had used effectively in 2024.
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Voters responded in the Midterms to rising energy prices.
David Gelles focuses on How Trump’s Energy Policies Helped Trigger Tuesday’s Election Rout (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/04/climate/trump-fossil-fuel-energy-policy.html).
Gelles writes, “President Trump spent much of the past two years promising to bring down energy prices
“Instead, his war with Iran, as well as other policies, drove up the cost of gasoline, diesel and electricity. At the same time his administration worked to thwart efforts to fight climate change, blocking renewable energy investments that could have reduced the country’s reliance on fossil fuels or brought down costs.”
Voters responded to the failure of Trump’s energy policies.
Gelles writes,
“On Tuesday, voters’ frustration with soaring energy prices helped propel Democrats to a blowout, with Republicans losing control of the House and the Senate, as well as the governorships of many historically conservative states.
“‘It’s quite clear that energy and energy affordability played a big role in the electorate’s decision-making last night,’ said Hasan Nazar, head of policy at Crux, a clean energy finance company.
“Gasoline prices across the country were at a record high for an Election Day, according to AAA.”
“No single action had a bigger effect on energy costs than Mr. Trump’s decision to go to war with Iran. With the Strait of Hormuz closed and global flows of oil disrupted, gasoline prices in the United States have jumped more than 40 percent since the war began. Diesel prices are up nearly 70 percent.”
Gelles considers other actions by Trump’s administration that increased costs for consumers. He writes,
“Beyond the war in Iran, the Trump administration has taken a sweeping approach to reshaping the nation’s energy policy, including actions that may have increased costs for consumers.
“At a time when electricity demand and prices are soaring because of the data center boom, the administration has blocked the construction of offshore wind farms, despite pleas from governors to allow the projects to get built. It also mandated that coal-burning power plans stay online, even though utilities said that doing so would raise prices for their customers.”
“The election was a compete repudiation of his energy agenda,” said Lori Lodes, president of Climate Power, an environmental group. “The question is what comes next, and one thing he could do is stop blocking clean power that could help meet demand and lower costs.”
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Trump brags about his White House ballroom and seeks to deflect blame for midterm drubbing,
Will Weissert focuses on Trump’s deflection, AP, Nov 4, 2026
“President Donald Trump reacted Wednesday to Republicans’ midterm election losses by showing off the White House ballroom he’s building as he demonstrated the kind of detached behavior that voters around the country said was a key reason they opted to punish his party.
Weissert continues. “In an extraordinary scene, Trump summoned reporters to the hulking construction site that he demolished the East Wing to make room for and the Republican president spoke for nearly 20 minutes about minute building details. He did not mention his party losing control of Congress after defeats in some of the country’s deepest GOP strongholds, including Texas and South Carolina, or voter concerns about the high cost of living and federal corruption that helped cause the election losses.
“‘This has been a structure the likes of which has never been seen anywhere,’ Trump said, speaking into a microphone that sent loud feedback echoing around the cavernous space.”
“This is not what presidents normally talk about the day after an election
Presidents usually speak with reporters the day after the midterms. It’s normal for those whose party endured big losses to shoulder publicly at least part of the responsibility.”
Trump ignores the midterm election results.
Weissert continues. “His,” Trump’s, “appearance came after midterm voters said they thought the president was focused on the wrong issues. About two-thirds of voters said Trump does not have the right priorities, according to The AP Voter Poll, and the overwhelming majority of these voters supported Democratic House candidates.
Denial
Weissert: “Trump eventually took questions at the ballroom site and attempted to duck responsibility for the broad Republican losses. He insisted he didn’t lead the party into an Election Day drubbing despite staging a flurry of rallies where he implored supporters to pretend that he was on the ballot.
“‘If I were on the ballot I would have won,’ Trump insisted.
“‘I don’t like to consider it a defeat for me. I wasn’t on the ballot,’ he told Fox News Channel. Voters, he said, just ‘didn’t like the candidates’ on the ballot. The Voter Poll suggests Trump himself was a drag on GOP politicians and that in some races, candidates were seen as too supportive of the unpopular president.
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Most Americans oppose ICE, which influenced their midterm vote
Shireen Akram-Boshar draws attention that anti-ICE sentiment fueled the Republican midterm losses as well as inflation, Nov. 6, 2026 (https://truthout.org/articles/it-wasnt-just-gas-prices-anti-ice-sentiment-fueled-republican-midterm-losses). Shireen is a socialist writer, editor and Middle East/North Africa solidarity activist.
Here’s some of what she writes.
“While President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance blame Republicans’ losses in the midterm elections on their war on Iran — with Trump flippantly saying that the war “drove the gasoline up a little bit short term” — Tuesday’s results also represent a rejection of the Trump administration’s deportation campaign.
“In Texas, where Trump won a Latino majority in the presidential election in 2024, the midterms saw a reversal, with Latino votes playing a role in the victories of Democrats James Talarico and Gina Hinojosa. Polls show 6 in 10 Latino voters supporting Talarico over Republican Ken Paxton — and in South Texas, Talarico performed better than Democrats have since the 1930s.
Rep. Joaquin Castro (D-Texas) said that ‘we haven’t seen this huge a Latino voter surge before,’ and stated that ‘the difference is ICE and the mass deportation campaign.’ Talarico had spoken against the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, and against ICE’s tactics.
“ACLU Texas polling prior to the midterm elections showed that 53 percent of residents in Texas border regions feel that immigration enforcement has made life harder, rather than making their communities safer. The polls also showed that 63 percent of those residents believe that ICE tactics ‘have gone too far.’”
“One resident surveyed in the poll — which spoke to 1,031 adults in El Paso and Rio Grande Valley counties — said that “ICE isn’t helping by deporting our hardworking immigrants regardless of their status. This whole region and country has been built on the backs of immigrants.”
Akram-Boshar finds evidence for similar anti-ICE sentiment in Maine. “In Maine, too, voters expressed that the ICE crackdown over the past year had pushed them to vote against Republican Sen. Susan Collins, with the ICE killing of Johan Sebastian Guerrero in July as a particular flashpoint. Residents asked why Collins had not done more to stop ICE’s violent raids — and why she instead voted for more funding for the agency.
‘Democrat Troy Jackson, on the other hand, has said that he will ‘fight to abolish ICE.’ In his victory speech on Wednesday, he said: ‘Masked agents terrorizing our neighbors and ripping families apart should never be accepted in the United States of America.’”
The anti-ICE views are not limited to just a few states. “Polling by Pew Research Center in September and October found that a majority of Black (69 percent), Latino (67 percent), and Asian (66 percent) adults in the U.S. have a negative opinion of ICE, while 49 percent of white adults have an unfavorable view of the agency. Pew also found that Americans across racial and ethnic groups view ICE more unfavorably today than they did a year ago, with 56 percent of Americans saying they have a negative view of the agency overall. Only 35 percent say they view the agency favorably.”
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Concluding thoughts
Trump is not only a lousy president, but he is also a dangerous president. And, though I didn’t get into it, he has weird thoughts raising an additional question about his mental stability. Consider Thomas B. Edsall’s article on Trump’s obsession with male butts (https://www.nytimes.com/2026/11/03/opinion/trump-backsides-language-rallies.html) or Jeet Heer’s article, What’s Behind Trump’s obsession with Butts (https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/trump-butt-obsession-jon-husted-ass).
Putting the weirdness aside, his polls continue to slide, while he has the US in a costly and lengthy Iran war, prices remain at an inflationary level, and even his deportation policy has become unpopular. While most Americans are experiencing hardship, Trump and his family increase their wealth at unprecedented levels. It’s no wonder so many voters rejected his political party in the midterm elections.
The concern is that Trump has two more years to serve in his presidency, with veto power, and a vengeful attitude toward his enemies.
