Does Trump Want to Lose the Midterms?

What It Covers

Ezra Klein and Republican strategist Liam Donovan analyze why Trump, polling at 58% disapproval and more unpopular than any modern second-term predecessor, appears to prioritize controlling the Republican Party over winning the 2026 midterms — and map the competitive Senate races in North Carolina, Maine, Texas, Ohio, Alaska, Iowa, and Michigan.

Key Questions Answered

• •Trump's control calculus: Trump's primary political objective is dominating the Republican Party, not controlling Congress. He endorses Ken Paxton over incumbent John Cornyn in Texas, primaries Thomas Massie and Bill Cassidy, and attacks Brian Fitzpatrick — all Republicans — because a compliant, fearful party protects him longer than a congressional majority. A Democratic Congress gives him an enemy and eliminates the risk of Republican-led investigations.
• •The approval floor problem: Trump sits at roughly 58% disapproval, more than double his net disapproval at this point in his first term (plus-10 then, plus-21 now). The recoverable voters are Republicans who dislike tariffs, oppose foreign entanglements, or worry about cost of living. They want a reason to return to Trump. The strategic question for Republicans is whether Trump's approval rebounds above 40% before November 2026.
• •Senate map math: Democrats need North Carolina (open seat, Roy Cooper as candidate, resource advantage) as their mandatory first pickup. Maine with Susan Collins is the binary wildcard — either Maine still rewards independent incumbents or it doesn't. Ohio with Sherrod Brown versus appointed incumbent John Husted is the plausible third seat, but Brown lost by 3.5 points in 2024 and faces a structural Democratic brand problem in the state.
• •Candidate quality as the decisive variable: The 2022 midterm showed Republicans winning the popular House vote by a significant margin yet netting only roughly 10 seats because redistricting eliminated competitive districts and weak primary candidates (Blake Masters, Mehmet Oz, Kari Lake) lost winnable races. In 2026, Michigan's Democratic primary — where Abdullah El-Sayed, Mallory McMorrow, and Haley Stevens split the vote through an August primary — replicates that Republican self-destruction pattern.
• •Attention economy replacing institutional gatekeeping: Candidates who dominate online attention — James Talarico via TikTok and Joe Rogan, Graham Plattner defeating Janet Mills through energy and visibility — now outperform candidates optimized for traditional media endorsements and editorial boards. Spencer Pratt running competitively in Los Angeles illustrates that name recognition from non-political platforms now transfers directly into electoral viability, reshaping how campaigns allocate resources.
• •The Fox News versus YouTube Republican fracture: A generational schism is forming inside the Republican coalition between older voters shaped by Christian Zionism and neoconservative foreign policy instincts and younger Republicans skeptical of institutions, sympathetic to Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens, and opposed to Iran escalation. Thomas Massie's primary loss showed this divide numerically — he performed significantly better among young Republicans than older ones — and the fracture will intensify once Trump is no longer the singular unifying force.