Republicans are in trouble for the midterms. So is democracy.

February 2, 2026

There are two dominant stories about the upcoming midterm elections that are in direct tension with one another. One is about a building blue wave that could sweep Democrats into power across the country. The other is about a president hell-bent on rigging elections and preventing Democrats from taking power.

Both may be true. Indeed, the first may be the cause of the second. Which proves stronger — and which can be better mitigated — will likely determine where the nation stands politically a year from now.

The first story is easy to tell. Republicans in Congress are in electoral trouble — and they know it. At the heart of their dimming prospects in 2026 is the fact that Donald Trump is deeply unpopular, and that unpopularity hangs around their necks as an electoral anchor.

There is no better predictor of a party’s performance in midterm elections than presidential popularity. It outranks party approval and the generic congressional ballot as a predictor of eventual outcomes.

According to The Economist, Trump’s approval rating is a dismal 38%. Even worse for the GOP, he is now underwater on his handling of inflation, jobs and the economy, foreign policy, immigration and crime. A startling 60% of Americans think the country is on the wrong track, while only 31% think it is on the right track.

In the fall elections, Democrats overperformed from coast to coast, top to bottom — winning statewide races in Georgia, New Jersey and Virginia by wide margins. In special elections, Democrats have continued to overperform as well.

This weekend, we received another stark indication of just how sharply momentum has shifted away from Republicans. In a Texas district that Donald Trump carried in 2024 by 17 points, the Democratic state Senate candidate won the special election by 14 points.

Republicans weren’t sleepwalking on this reliably red district, either. Trump weighed in for the heavily favored Republican, and the GOP candidate vastly outspent the Democratic candidate. Yet, despite it all, Democrats claimed a victory.

While it is too soon to be certain, it certainly appears that a blue wave is building. If this pattern holds through next November, Democrats should easily take control of the House by a sizable margin, with the Senate also in serious contention.

Standing against this outcome is the second emerging narrative — that Donald Trump plans to subvert the will of the people by potentially rigging or stealing the election this November. Even before the most recent raid in Fulton County targeting 2020 election materials, Trump’s Department of Justice had already been taking steps to undermine free and fair elections.

Over the past several months, the DOJ has attempted to strong-arm states into turning over their most sensitive personal voter data. States that have resisted have been sued. Attorney General Pam Bondi even tried to leverage Alex Pretti’s murder to blackmail Minnesota into turning over its voter file to the DOJ.

Meanwhile, Trump has suggested that because Republicans are likely to lose this fall, “we shouldn’t even have an election.” He also lamented to The New York Times that he had not used the military to seize ballot boxes after the 2020 election.

Over the next nine months, those of us in the pro-democracy movement must reconcile these two stories — Democratic overperformance and democratic backsliding. It is not enough to assume the first will simply overcome the second.

For years, some have believed that organizing alone can overcome the obstacles Republicans place in the way of voting rights. Though born of good intentions — empowering voters through organizing — the myth that we can out-organize voter suppression and election subversion is both dangerous and immoral.

First, it trivializes the genuine threats we face. Mass disenfranchisement, abuse of the criminal legal process and the seizure of ballots cannot be defeated through better voter turnout programs.

Equally important, framing organizing as the solution shifts the burden onto voters — the very victims of these efforts — to be better organized. This sets them up for inevitable failure, giving critics permission to blame them for being insufficiently organized.

What is required is far harder than organizing. It is a strong, sustained legal and political strategy aimed at disrupting and countering Trump’s plans.

We accomplished this after 2020, defeating Trump and his allies in court more than 60 times. We failed after Jan. 6, when Congress did not impeach Trump and bar him from ever holding office.

We succeeded in 2022 by forcing recalcitrant local election officials to certify elections after initially refusing. In November 2024, we failed to convince the public that the future of democracy hung in the balance.

With Trump back in power, peaceful protesters being attacked in the streets, and an administration bent on lawlessness, the stakes are higher than ever. This administration has made clear it is willing to wage all-out war on democracy to hold power. We must be equally resolute in our defense of free and fair elections.