Are President Trump’s signature tariffs legal?
Rising health care costs, limited executive power, and two ongoing conflicts are all critical issues facing President Trump in the new year as the midterm elections approach.
There are big numbers and big stakes on the ballot in November, including 435 House seats, 35 Senate seats, 39 gubernatorial seats, and the course of the country in the final two years of President Donald Trump’s term.
Who will win?
In the midterm election reckoning, some statistics could signal the possibility of a squeak or tsunami, a Democratic landslide, or the current resilience of the Republican Party.
“If we lose the midterm elections, we’re going to lose a lot of things that we’re talking about, a lot of assets, a lot of the tax cuts that we’re talking about, and it’s going to be very bad,” President Trump told supporters at a rally in Iowa, where he kicked off his election year campaign. “We have to win the midterm elections.”
Contrast the president’s warning with the confidence of New York Democratic House leader Hakeem Jeffries.
“We’re only going to win three seats,” he told reporters at Parliament House. “It’s happening. Democrats will take back the House majority. The only question is, by what margin?”
Nine months before Election Day, plenty of time for things to change, here are three key statistics that can give us clues about the outcome in November.
First, Trump’s approval rating: 36%.
That was the president’s rating in the latest Associated Press/NORC poll, conducted Feb. 5-8 and considered the most reliable.
His lukewarm measure of political temperature was consistent with other reputable pollsters, including a 37% approval rating in a Quinnipiac University poll conducted from January 29 to February 29. It came in second place, with a rating of 36% in a Gallup poll conducted from December 1st to 15th.
If this approval rating continues, it would be the lowest for a mid-term president in 70 years and would be a red flag for Republicans.
Trump, of course, won’t be on the ballot, but a president’s popularity always predicts the performance of his party’s candidates. Midterm elections are not just elections, but also referendums on the White House, giving voters the perfect opportunity to ask themselves what they think of the commander-in-chief’s behavior.
President Trump told a dinner of House Republicans that the consequences could be personal to him. “We have to win the midterms, because if we don’t win the midterms, they’re going to find a reason to impeach me. I’m going to be impeached,” he lamented.
He speaks from experience. Democrats impeached him in 2018 when they regained the House majority during his first term. Twice.
Some Republicans believe they themselves are at risk. Thirty of them have already announced that they will not run for re-election, some are retiring, and others plan to run for other positions. That’s 14% of the Republican caucus, and more are likely to follow.
In response, 21 Democratic Party members announced that they would not run again.
After World War II, the president’s party lost an average of 25 seats in midterm elections. Only twice, in 1998 and 2002, did the ruling party gain momentum. In both cases, the president’s approval ratings skyrocketed until the 1960s.
But the only president whose midterm rating was lower than Trump’s current ranking was Harry Truman in 1946, at 33%. That fall saw brutal election results for fellow Democrats, with 55 of them losing their House seats. In 2006, when George W. Bush received a dismal 38% of the vote, 30 Republicans lost their seats.
President Trump’s approval rating during his first term was 41%, and Republicans lost 40 seats.
Still, swings in dozens of seats are becoming increasingly difficult as the number of battleground districts dwindles and political divisions sharpen. Only 18 of the House seats are listed as swing seats, putting Republicans at greater risk than Democrats, and the remaining 18 are “leaning” in either direction, said Amy Walter and the nonpartisan Cook Political Report.
Incidentally, a spate of redistricting plans in states such as Texas and California to gerrymander congressional lines now appear to be coming to nothing.
Its net number is close to zero.
View financial anxiety: 57.3
These are preliminary figures for February from the University of Michigan’s authoritative consumer sentiment survey.
Measures of consumer sentiment have fallen 20% since Trump took office again a year ago, reflecting continued concern about the current economy and pessimism about the future.
Created in the 1950s, this number typically rises during good times and bottoms out during recessions. Over the past half-century, it hit an optimistic high of 111.3 in February 2000, near the peak of the longest economic expansion in history, and a low of 50 in June 2022, when inflation soared.
In fact, the current measure is lower than the current measure for people without stock portfolios. The slight rise in ratings this month was driven by wealthier Americans who have money in the market. Wage growth for low-income workers is slowing, and more households are falling behind on their debts.
Nearly three out of four Americans now describe their economic situation as only “fair” or “poor.” President Trump’s reputation for handling the economy, once a strength, is now a liability. An NPR/PBS News/Marist poll conducted January 27-30 found his disapproval rating at 59%, the highest ever. Most said President Trump’s signature tariffs hurt.
Troubling for the president is that despite surprisingly strong economic data, he has not been able to persuade many Americans to adopt an optimistic outlook. Job growth was stronger than expected last month, and inflation also fell.
President Trump hyperbolically declared to Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, “I think we actually have the greatest economy in history.” But he acknowledged voters remain stubbornly skeptical. “I think we have to sell it because we have to win by a landslide, and we will do everything we can to do that.”
President Trump has derided the issue of “affordability” as “Democrat chicanery” and “the work of con artists.” Some concerned Republicans are calling for him to show more public empathy.
He is not the first president to discover that economic statistics do not necessarily determine how Americans feel. Just ask George H.W. Bush. He was unsuccessful in winning a second term in 1992, claiming that the economy had turned a corner. He lost to Bill Clinton on a belief that has become a political maxim: “It’s the economy, you idiot.”
Or Joe Biden has reinforced his sense of being out of line by insisting that data shows the economy is strong even as the nation’s economy slumps.
MAGA funding: $304 million
For Republicans, the cold money is a reassuring number in a demoralizing year.
Let’s start with some basics. The Republican National Committee reported this month that it has $95 million in the bank, but the Democratic National Committee currently owes more than it has in the bank. The Republican Senate Leadership Fund, the main Republican super PAC in the Senate race, has $100 million in funding, nearly three times the $36 million reported by the Democratic Senate Majority PAC.
Looming over it all is MAGA, an influential pro-Trump super PAC with a staggering $304 million on hand. There is no Democratic Party that clearly responds to this.
“I am pleased to report that since the 2024 presidential election, we have raised over $1.5 billion from various forms and political organizations,” Trump wrote in a late-night post on Truth Social last August, without providing further details. That huge war chest would be especially noteworthy under a lame-duck president.
But Trump hasn’t always been so willing to put his money into other people’s races. In the midterm elections during his first White House term in 2018, his super PAC America First Action spent less than $30 million. This time, he may want to preserve his financial power to play a role in the 2028 presidential election.
But he could also choose to spend millions to fund ads that protect vulnerable Republican incumbents, attack potential Democratic challengers, tout his leadership and warn of dire consequences if his opponent wins.
Will that be enough to counter his slumping approval ratings and voters’ economic worries?
We might just find out.
