In November’s midterms, Trump has more at stake than control of Congress

The 3 November elections could leave Donald Trump without one or even both chambers, open the door to a third impeachment and bring forward the battle for his succession. The Senate will be decided in a handful of Republican states, and the outcome may end up pitting two very different ways of inheriting Trumpism against each other: JD Vance and Marco Rubio.

Midterm elections are usually described as a referendum on the president. The phrase is convenient, probably too convenient, but this time there is a good deal of truth in it. On 3 November Americans will elect a new House of Representatives and renew roughly a third of the Senate, although in reality they will be deciding a great deal more. They may be settling how much real power Donald Trump keeps during the last two years of his presidency and, perhaps even more importantly, when the fight for the political space he has built around himself truly begins.

Congress now looks closer to changing hands than to keeping its Republican majority.

The first thing worth saying is that the Republican position is not good. Nor is it catastrophic, at least not yet. In the House of Representatives the majority is so thin that the Democrats need a net gain of barely three seats to regain control. With the generic ballot favouring them and Trump moving at very low approval levels, around 33% in some of the latest national polls, holding the House has become a rather difficult task for the Republicans. Today I would put the probability of it passing into Democratic hands at roughly 80% or 85%.

The Senate is another matter. Here arithmetic matters far more than the national mood, because the whole country does not vote at the same time and each state has its own logic. The Republicans hold 53 senators against 47 Democrats, which forces the latter to secure a net gain of four seats. It sounds like little, but it is not.

Two things also need to be distinguished. One is defending the seats you already hold and quite another is taking them from your opponent. For the Democrats to win back the Senate it is not enough to survive where they already govern. They have to go into Republican territory and win there several times.

That is why it is not really worth dwelling on Georgia or New Hampshire unless the situation changes radically. They are Democratic seats and, in principle, the party starts with enough of an advantage to keep them. Michigan, however, deserves an exception, because the risk there is considerably greater.

The Democrats may have shot themselves in the foot in a swing state like Michigan. For most Americans, “socialist” is a cursed word.

Michigan currently has a Democratic seat that is open because its senator is not running for re-election. Neither of the two candidates standing in November holds the seat today. The contest will be between the Democrat Abdul El-Sayed and the Republican Mike Rogers, and here I see a problem that is not merely a matter of polling. El-Sayed clearly represents the most left-wing flank of the Democratic Party. He has been endorsed by Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and many of the organisations furthest to the left, such as the wing known as “Socialists for America”, with whom he shares a significant part of the economic programme of the American socialist left.

In California or New York that would probably matter much less. But Michigan is something else. Trump won there in 2024, and there is a considerable part of the American electorate, especially among moderate and independent voters, for whom any word that comes close to “socialism” triggers an almost immediate allergy. It is cultural. It may seem exaggerated to us, but for decades the American voter has been taught that socialist is dangerously close to communist, and that communist is exactly what they do not want to be. Bernie Sanders is probably the most obvious example. For years he has managed to be the permanent alternative without ever becoming the Democratic presidential nominee.

That is why Michigan is far more worrying for the Democrats than a simple reading of the polls would suggest. Some still show a very tight race and, although El-Sayed can perfectly well win, today I would not give him much more than 45% or 50%. If the Republicans take Michigan, the arithmetic for a Democratic Senate becomes extraordinarily complicated. And the Democrats will have only themselves to blame. The number of seats they have to win goes up by one.

In the Senate these should be comfortable elections for the Republicans, given the seats in play, but the economy seems set to turn them into their worst nightmare.

But let us go to where the election is really being fought, which is Republican territory.

North Carolina is probably the Democrats’ best chance today of taking a seat from the Republicans. The seat is currently Republican, although its senator has decided to retire, so neither of the two candidates standing in November is the incumbent. The Democratic candidate has been ahead of the Republican for some time and some polls give him quite a wide lead. If I had to assign a probability, I would give the Democrat between 75% and 80%. That does not mean it is won. It means something else, probably more important. If the Democrats do not win North Carolina, I find it very hard to see a reasonable path to a Senate majority.

Then comes Maine. Here we do have a Republican candidate who currently holds the seat and is trying to keep it. That matters a great deal, because the Republican senator has spent years building an electoral identity partly independent of Trump and has shown that there are Maine voters capable of electing Democratic politicians and voting for her at the same time. Her main asset is not precisely being a Republican, but having managed for years to look somewhat less Republican than many of her party colleagues. The problem is that this time the national wind is blowing much harder. If the rejection of Trump turns into a Democratic wave, it will reach Maine too. I would treat it practically as a coin toss, perhaps with a slight advantage for the Republican thanks to incumbency. A 52% to 48% split seems reasonable to me. Not much more.

If the Democrats win North Carolina, they will probably reach their goal. And if they win Texas, there may be no need to keep counting.

Ohio is even more interesting. This is a race I would watch particularly closely on election night. If the Democrats win back Ohio, we will have something far more important than a bad night for the Republicans. It would mean that part of the electorate that backed Trump is willing to draw a fairly clear line between the president and the Senate candidate. And that would be a politically dangerous signal. The polls have narrowed a great deal and the race is now practically tied.

Iowa is perhaps one of the biggest surprises of the whole process. Not so long ago, including it in a list of genuinely competitive states would have looked like searching for excitement where there was none. Not any more. Iowa also has an economic peculiarity that should not be forgotten. It is an agricultural state, and the effects of tariffs, production costs and the difficulties of the rural sector weigh far more there than in a New York suburb. If the rural economy arrives at November angry, there may be surprises.

Alaska follows a completely different logic. In principle, given its electoral structure, the Republican candidate should start clearly ahead. The problem is that the Democratic candidate is extraordinarily competitive by Alaskan standards, and some polls have gone as far as showing the race practically tied. Alaska has such a peculiar electoral law and political culture that caution is advisable. If the Democratic candidate did end up winning there, my reading would be quite simple. We would no longer be looking at just a close election. We would be looking at a wave.

Who would have said at this stage that a Democrat could become one of Alaska’s senators?

And then there is Texas. It is probably the most fascinating state of all, because a few months ago saying that Texas could be decisive for control of the Senate would have sounded like an exaggeration. Not so much now. The seat currently belongs to the Republicans, but the senator who holds it will not be standing in November after losing his party’s nomination. The Democratic and Republican candidates appear very close in various polls, something that should worry the Republican Party a good deal in Texas. The last cycle in which a Democrat won a Senate seat in that state is now a long way back. Even so, Texas is still Texas. I would not turn a polling tie into a Democratic advantage too quickly. The electoral structure, the rural vote and the Republicans’ ability to mobilise remain important. That said, if the Democrats win Texas, we can probably switch off the calculator. Because by then it is quite likely that they will also have won several of the other competitive states and the Senate will have changed hands.

Losing both chambers could mean the two worst years of Trump’s political life. A living hell.

Reduced to its essentials, the arithmetic looks like this. The Democrats need to hold on to almost everything they already have, with Michigan as the main danger, win North Carolina and then take roughly three out of Maine, Ohio, Iowa, Alaska and Texas. If they lose Michigan, they will need one more. That is the real difficulty.

It can be done. But it means winning a lot of close elections on the same night.

That is why I would currently keep the probability of the Democrats winning the Senate at around 45% or 50%. The House seems much more likely to me. The Senate, not yet.

And what happens if Trump loses one or both chambers? This, in my view, is where the truly interesting part begins, because an electoral defeat can have consequences far greater than simply passing fewer laws.

A Democratic House of Representatives could paralyse much of Trump’s legislative agenda. Budgets, tax reforms, spending and any significant initiative that needs to go through Congress would be subject to negotiation. But perhaps that would not even be his main problem.

The problem would be the investigations. A Democratic majority would win back the committee chairs, the power of subpoena, the ability to demand documents and the possibility of compelling members of the administration to testify. Two years of a presidency can very easily turn into a succession of hearings, accusations, leaks and institutional clashes.

A third impeachment is possible. Removing Trump, much less so.

And naturally a word Trump knows perfectly well would reappear. Impeachment. He has been through that procedure twice, and thinking about a third may seem excessive, although legally there is no particular difficulty. For the House of Representatives to approve articles of impeachment a simple majority is enough. If the Democrats win the House, they will have that option.

Removing the president is something completely different. Impeachment by the House is essentially a formal accusation. Removal is then decided in the Senate and requires two thirds of the senators present. If all one hundred were present, 67 would be needed.

Let us even assume a large Democratic victory and a 52 to 48 Senate. Fifteen Republican votes would still be needed to remove Trump. With 51 to 49, sixteen would be needed.

That is why I consider it quite possible that a third impeachment process could be opened if the Democrats control the House, but much less likely that Trump would actually be removed. Today I would put that possibility below 10%, unless something serious enough came to light to split the Republican Party from within.

As so often, a party’s most loyal activists are not in tune with its voters. And this is where the succession will play Trump’s last card.

And there lies precisely the difference that interests me most. Surviving legally is one thing; surviving politically is another. Trump could spend his last two years under permanent investigation, with a hostile House, perhaps also an adverse Senate, and no possibility of running for the presidency again. He would retain enormous executive powers, but with every month that passed a question would grow louder, one that every political party ends up asking, however hard it tries to put it off.

Who comes next.

If Trump were actually removed, JD Vance would automatically become president. There would be no early elections or any extraordinary vote. That is precisely what the vice presidency exists for.

And here an extraordinarily interesting constitutional curiosity appears. If Vance took over the presidency after January 2027, he would serve less than two years of Trump’s term. He could then run in 2028 and again in 2032. In theory he could spend nearly ten years in the White House.

Today Vance is clearly the Republican favourite for 2028. Polling averages put him at around 40%, while Marco Rubio stands at roughly 25%. The gap is significant and makes a good deal of sense. Vance can present himself as the natural heir to Trumpism and as the political continuation of a base that remains extraordinarily loyal to Trump.

But a contradiction appears that may end up deciding a great deal.

Vance looks like the better candidate today to win a Republican primary. Rubio may turn out to be the better candidate to win a general election.

Vance carries high levels of rejection among the national electorate. Rubio does not arouse universal enthusiasm either, but his net rating is somewhat better and, above all, he occupies a rather curious political position within the administration. He has managed to stay close to Trump without disappearing entirely inside him.

As Secretary of State he also has a platform that is hard to match. China, Iran, Russia, Ukraine, Latin America, NATO and the relationship with Europe allow him to build an image of international competence that Vance has developed much less.

Rubio could end up representing a kind of normalisation of Trumpism. Keeping an important part of its economic, migration and geopolitical agenda, but recovering less confrontational political manners and a different relationship with the institutions.

The best scenario for Marco Rubio is, without doubt, for Trump to survive.

Vance represents something different. He represents continuity. And that difference may end up becoming the real Republican debate of 2028.

However, if Trump were removed and Vance reached the presidency before the elections, Rubio would have an enormous problem. He would have to face a sitting Republican president in a primary. Legally he could, of course. Whether he would have any reasonable chance of winning is another matter.

That is why I believe the best scenario for Rubio is, paradoxically, one in which Trump remains in the White House. That he loses one or both chambers. That his last two years end up wearing him down politically. And that the Republican Party reaches 2028 asking itself whether it needs to carry on down exactly the same path, or keep part of Trumpism while abandoning another. There Rubio would indeed have room.

In the end everything will depend on the size of the defeat. Losing the House by three or four seats can be explained as the usual correction presidents suffer in midterm elections. Losing it by twenty or thirty is something else. Holding the Senate 51 to 49 would allow Trump to keep a formidable institutional tool. Losing it 52 to 48 would change the second half of his term a great deal. And if the Republicans also lose Texas, Ohio or Alaska, then the problem will no longer be merely parliamentary.

Trump can lose these elections and remain president. He can even be subjected to a third impeachment and stay in the White House. What is not so clear is that he can suffer a sufficiently broad defeat and keep his political control of the Republican Party intact.

But here the numbers count. Winning is enough for the Democrats, but if they do, the size of the Republican defeat will decide what comes next.

That, in my opinion, is the real November election.

Americans will believe they are voting for congressmen and senators. To some extent they will also be deciding when the political end of Donald Trump really begins, and which of the two men who look best placed today, JD Vance or Marco Rubio, arrives with the advantage when the time comes to replace him.

And that may end up being far more important than knowing who chairs a Senate committee for two years.