Donald Trump won’t be able to cope. If he loses control of one chamber of Congress, never mind both, the world will see a personality collapse and rage meltdown on the scale of the final sequence of the Lord of the Rings.
The Donald Trump of 2018 could cope, barely. Back then, he had a number of things going for him. First, although Republicans suffered heavy losses in the House, they gained two seats in the Senate. Trump interpreted the Senate gains as proof that “people like me,” and the House losses as a rebuke to Trump-disloyal Republicans. “Mia Love,” he said of a Republican who lost her seat in Utah, “gave me no love, but then she lost. Too bad.” Second, the Trump of 2018 had the benefit of a strong economy. The war he was fighting in Iraq and Syria was going well and commanded broad bipartisan support, given that it had started under President Obama.
Third, Trump did not have a lot personally at stake in the election of 2018. The big threat to him that year was the investigation of his Russia connections by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. The Mueller investigation was conducted within the executive branch. That investigation had been initiated even though the Republicans held the House, and Trump was later able to contain the damage from the investigation even though Republicans lost the House. Fourth, Trump in 2018 was younger, nimbler, and planning for the future: his reelection race in 2020.
Polls sometimes miss. But if the most recent ones are accurate, the Trump of 2026 faces big losses in both chambers, all of them directly implicating him. The president opened a Senate seat in North Carolina by harrying the incumbent Republican, Thom Tillis, into retirement. Former Governor Roy Cooper, a Democrat, now appears headed to a victory so big that he may flip the state legislature too, potentially upending one of the most successful Republican congressional gerrymanders. In the race for Ohio governor, Trump endorsed Vivek Ramaswamy, whose noxious campaign may cost the GOP not only another Senate seat, but the state legislature too. Trump even put a Senate seat in Texas in play by favoring the radioactive Ken Paxton over the popular incumbent, John Cornyn. Trump also started a war with Iran that he is not winning. He imposed tariffs that have raised prices and hurt farmers. He accelerated inflation with the deficits exacerbated by his so-called big beautiful bill.
[ead: Trump is closing from behind]
The Trump of 2026 has a lot at stake in today’s unignorable election. The second Trump administration is a network of scandals and corruption. Subpoena power in the hands of his opponents will expose Trump and his family to enormous legal and political risk. Unlike in 2018, large numbers of Americans connect Trump’s self-enrichment to their economic decline. Gallup found that 89 percent of Americans agree that corruption is widespread in government, up 10 points from just a year ago, and up 30 points from 20 years ago. That’s far higher than in any other developed country, comparable to levels found in Lebanon, Peru, Ghana and Nigeria.
The Trump of 2026 is more addled and more clumsy than the Trump of 2018. In his final pre-election speech, he reminded voters of his botched renovation of the Reflecting Pool on the National Mall in Washington, D.C.—and mused about renaming the pool after himself.
Trump’s style of politics is authoritarian. He does not inspire or negotiate. He issues orders. He demands submission. He makes everything about himself. Trump never tried to broaden his support. He blatantly favored disaster-aid requests from states with Republican governors over those from states with Democratic governors. He was more likely to apportion tariff relief to firms that donated to Republicans, and more likely to refuse relief to firms that did not. When he encountered opposition in Congress, he responded with insults that permanently alienated legislators whose help he might need later.
[Peter Wehner: The MAGA reckoning arrives]
Trump ruled his party by fear, and now the fear is ebbing. On Sunday, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis made a campaign appearance near Mar-a-Lago to call on Republicans to take concerns about rising gas prices seriously—a cost most Americans blame on Trump’s Iran war. On November 1, the commentator Tucker Carlson posted on X a claim that Trump was planning a nuclear strike on Iran—and that only Vice President Vance and Special Envoy Steve Witkoff stood in his way. Somebody who supports Vance is leaking to enhance his appeal at the expense of the president.
Trump will not respond patiently to such challenges from within. He holds hundreds of millions of dollars in his MAGA super PAC and related entities. Whatever remains after the races this year could then go toward sustaining the Trump family’s political power—conceivably backing a future presidential bid by one of Trump’s children.
If the Democrats take the House and subpoenas start arriving, Trump will still retain control of the U.S. military and U.S. security services. He can indict people, he can invade nations, he can invoke emergency powers. He will get angrier, noisier, and crazier.
He doesn’t care about the future of his party. He doesn’t care about the future of the country. He will want to punish a nation that, in his view, has ungratefully rejected him. Corruptly obtained money never feels secure. Trump, his children, and his inner group of close friends and sycophants most enriched in the past two years have a lot to worry about as the minutes of Trump’s presidency tick down.
The worst is yet to come.
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