Trump midterm elections and post-election outlook, Digi Mart USA News (United States): Americans vote today in the midterm elections of Donald Trump’s second term, with the whole US House and a third of the Senate on the ballot. Polls suggest Democrats are poised for big gains and possibly a takeover of Congress.
Writing in a publisher opinion article, Miles Taylor recalls a meeting held a few weeks before the 2018 midterms, when White House advisers prepared a plan in case Republicans lost the House. The strategy aimed to keep the president focused on governing by treating coming Democratic investigations as background noise, with lawyers advising the White House to stonewall where possible and cooperate where unavoidable.
Taylor writes that the strategy depended entirely on Trump’s self-discipline. After the 2018 midterms, when Democrats flipped 40 House seats, the biggest gain since the Watergate era, he says the president grew combative in private and at a press conference, warning that a new majority using its subpoena power would face a “war-like posture.”
Taylor argues that the constraints that once limited Trump no longer exist, because he cannot run again and the people around him were chosen for loyalty. He expects Democrats to pursue investigations into the Trump family, pardons, prosecutions of critics, taxpayer-funded projects and foreign deals.
He predicts Trump will first try to deny, delay or disrupt a handover in Congress, including by contesting close counts and pressuring state officials over certification. Taylor also warns of possible escalation, including the use of presidential “doomsday” powers, which he attributes to former House Majority Leader Dick Gephardt, as well as renewed pressure on news outlets and a shift in focus toward foreign stages.
Taylor concludes that Trump will fight hardest over symbolic projects such as the White House ballroom, a proposed triumphal arch and the reflecting pool, and that the conversation in Washington will soon turn to 2028 and whether Trump will leave office voluntarily.
