Two years after riding a wave of discontent to total control of Washington, Donald Trump and the Republicans face the same message of change that brought them to power. This time, it's aimed squarely at them.
America's midterm elections are less than one week away. It's not a presidential election year, but the result could reverberate from the White House to Brussels. On the ballot are all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 seats in the Senate. Republicans currently hold a narrow 219-214 majority in the House and a 53-47 majority in the Senate. For President Trump, the stakes could hardly be higher. And the political winds that carried him back to the White House are now blowing hard in the other direction.
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The change that brought them to power
Two years ago, inflation and the economy propelled Trump back to the White House and handed Republicans control of both chambers of Congress.
The message was simple: change. According to 2024 ABC News exit polling, 28% of voters said the ability to bring needed change was the most important quality in a candidate. Trump won those voters 74% to 24%. The economy was the top issue for 32% of voters, and Trump won them 81% to 18%, according to NBC News exit polls.
That message carried down the ballot. Republicans flipped four Senate seats — West Virginia, Montana, Ohio and Pennsylvania — to retake the chamber, ousting long-serving Democrats such as Sherrod Brown and Bob Casey.
Republicans went on the attack, and the Democrats never managed to mount a defence.
The incumbents now
This time, the Republicans are the incumbents. They face the same message of change that brought them to power, and it does not appear to be a message that will favour them.
The economy is in worse shape than when Trump regained power. Inflation is not only rising, it is higher than when he was elected: 2.7% in November 2024, against 3.7% this September, up from 3.4% in August and driven largely by soaring energy prices.
Voters have noticed. Trump left office in 2021 above water on the economy, 48% to 41%, and in 2024 voters trusted him over Kamala Harris to handle it by 53% to 46%, according to NBC News exit polls. Today, just 34% approve of his handling of the economy and 65% disapprove, according to the CNBC All-America Economic Survey — his lowest mark in either term, and a disapproval rating worse than Joe Biden's worst showing.
The once-unthinkable has happened: 37% of voters now say Democrats have the better approach on the economy, against 33% for Republicans, according to the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll, which puts Trump's approval at 32%.
The broken promise
The dismal reversal can be traced back to Trump's largest broken promise: no more wars.
He repeated it relentlessly in 2024, as did his surrogates and the podcasters who backed him. On Ukraine, CNN counted at least 53 occasions on which he promised to end the war within 24 hours or before even taking office.
Today, Russia's war on Ukraine grinds on, its latest "breakthrough" a local humanitarian ceasefire in the single occupied town of Oleshky. A year after Trump declared the war in Gaza over, few of the ceasefire's promises have been fulfilled.
And in February, Trump started a new war, joining Israel in launching strikes on Iran. Nearly eight months later, there is no end in sight. At a rally in Texas on Tuesday, Trump told supporters the war would end "whenever I want it to end."
It was unpopular from day one: 56% of Americans opposed it in the first week, according to a PBS News/NPR/Marist poll. The opposition has only grown. Disapproval of Trump's handling of the war has risen from 61% in March to 65%, according to Pew Research, and in September a record share of more than 60% told Fox News it was the wrong decision.
The war has rattled the global economy, but Americans feel it most at the pump. Regular gasoline costs an average of $4.25 a gallon, up from $2.98 before the war, according to AAA, which says this is the first October that gas has averaged more than $4. Diesel has climbed from $3.76 to $6.35.
That hits everyone, but it hits Trump's rural base hardest: the farmers, ranchers and truckers who run on diesel.
'We're blowing it away'
Trump's response has been to insist that nothing is wrong. "Our first term, we had the greatest economy in the history of our country, and we're blowing it away," he told a rally in Tennessee this month. In March, as oil prices spiked, he went further: "When oil prices go up, we make a lot of money," he wrote on Truth Social.
But the impact on Americans is impossible to hide, or to blame on his opponents. Eight in ten rate the economy as fair or poor, according to CNBC.
Hitting home in the heartland
The war is not the only policy hurting Trump's most loyal voters. In late August, he paused certain beef tariffs for 90 days, opening the door to cheaper Brazilian beef. Cattle auction prices fell immediately.
Then there are the data centres, which have run straight into rural communities worried about their land, water and power bills. Half of Americans now oppose one within three miles of their home, up from 28% in January, according to a Politico poll. Farm bankruptcies are up 46% this year, according to the Nebraska Farmers Union, and 57% of rural voters disapprove of Trump's handling of the economy, according to an AP-KFF poll cited by ABC Australia.
Cracks in the base
The cracks run through Trump's own movement. Marjorie Taylor Greene broke with him over the Epstein files, foreign wars and affordability, and resigned from Congress after Trump branded her a "traitor." Tucker Carlson broke with him over Iran and now says he regrets supporting him.
Joe Rogan, whose podcast helped deliver young men to Trump, put it bluntly: "He ran on no more wars... And then we have one that we can't even really clearly define why we did it."
Purging the conservatives
Rather than mend those fences, Trump spent primary season going after some of his party's most steadfast conservatives.
In Kentucky, Congressman Thomas Massie, a fiscal hawk with a lifetime Heritage Action score of 83%, lost his primary 55% to 45% to a Trump-endorsed challenger backed by many of the president's biggest donors, in a race that drew more than $32 million in advertising. His crime was not a lack of conservatism. It was a willingness to tell the president "no."
In Texas, Trump endorsed scandal-plagued Attorney General Ken Paxton late in his runoff against four-term Senator John Cornyn, who scored 96% with Heritage Action in the current Congress. Paxton won 64% to 36%.
Now Republicans could lose a seat they have held for more than three decades. Democratic rising star James Talarico leads Paxton in most recent polls, and Republicans further down the Texas ballot, once considered safe, are fighting for their political lives.
Follow the money
Across the country, the clearest evidence of Trump's drag on his party isn't in the polls. It's in where the money is going.
In April, the Senate Leadership Fund, the main Republican Senate super PAC, unveiled a $342 million advertising plan across eight states. Texas, Kansas and Nebraska were not among them. Since 1 September, the group and its allies have spent or committed roughly $180 million across those three states, all of which Trump won by double digits.
Meanwhile, the group has pulled most of its remaining ad money from North Carolina, cut reservations in Georgia, taken out a $5 million "insurance policy" in South Carolina and started spending in deeply conservative Mississippi.
"I don't think people had on their bingo card that we'd be talking about Kansas, Nebraska, Iowa," Marc Short, Trump's liaison to Congress in his first term, told USA Today. "I mean it's a direct reflection of the president's economic policies that that's where we're fighting right now."
Parties don't pour money into safe seats because the polls are wrong. They do it because their own data says the polls are right.
The House rout and the Senate fight
Six months ago, the House looked winnable for Democrats. Today, the Republican fight to hold it looks futile.
Democrats need to flip just three seats. Decision Desk HQ gives them an 80% chance of winning control and projects 238 Democratic seats, while Polymarket traders put their odds at 92%. The question is no longer whether Democrats win the House, but by how much.
The real battle is for the Senate, a long shot for Democrats as recently as last spring. They need a net gain of four seats, and Polymarket traders give them a 67% chance.
North Carolina looks likely to flip. Beyond that, the majority will be decided in races that are, statistically, dead heats:
· Texas: Talarico leads Paxton 48% to 46% (Emerson).
· Ohio: Sherrod Brown leads Senator Jon Husted 47% to 44% (Suffolk University).
· Alaska: Mary Peltola leads Senator Dan Sullivan 49.1% to 47.5% (The Hill average).
· Iowa: Ashley Hinson and Josh Turek are deadlocked at 45.8% to 45.6% (The Hill average).
· Maine: Troy Jackson leads Senator Susan Collins 49% to 47% (Marist).
Best case, worst case
For Trump, the best realistic outcome is a split decision: a razor-thin 220-215 Democratic House and a Republican Senate that loses only North Carolina. Prediction markets give a Democratic House and Republican Senate a 27% chance.
The worst case is a rout. In a blowout, NBC News estimates Democrats could win as many as 263 House seats, the largest majority either party has held since 1990. In the Senate, a Democratic sweep of the remaining toss-ups on top of North Carolina would hand them 53 seats.
Either way, Trump would face two years of subpoenas, investigations and stalled legislation, and a Democratic House could launch impeachment proceedings.
A verdict on Trump II
If the worst comes to pass — or even a middle ground — it would be a heavy blow to Trump and a referendum on the first two years of his second term.
It would be Americans punishing a Republican Congress that rubber-stamped the White House as prices climbed and a new war began — and punishing Trump himself for the economy, inflation and broken promises.
And it would be a change vote that completely reverses the change vote of 2024. Two years ago, Americans voted for change and got a Republican Washington. Next Tuesday, they look set to vote for change again — this time, against them.