Dem
47
GOP
53
Maybe it was the potential loss of three-to-five House seats as a result of the ballot measure in Virginia on Tuesday, or maybe not, but Donald Trump is now actively moving into midterm mode. He understands that unless he rights the ship, the Democrats are likely to capture the House and it's now close to 50-50 on the Senate. Kalshi has the probability of Democrats winning the House at 0.85. The Economist has it at 0.95. Trump knows he has to do something, anything, to shake things up. Oh, and he may know about the latest polls (see below).
Trump's first cut at something is to fire three unpopular women in the cabinet, cozy up to Joe Rogan and Robert Kennedy Jr., and give some speeches in battleground states. Whether Rogan is convinced remains to be seen, and the speeches may rally Democrats as much or more than the Republicans, since Democrats have the momentum now on account of the blowout special elections and the Virginia vote. Rogan aside, an equally big problem for Trump is Tucker Carlson, who has now regrets supporting Trump in 2024. He won't be easy to win back.
In Trump's speeches, he mostly rambles and then highlights the the tax cuts in the BBB. But tax cuts may be counterproductive. The "no tax on overtime" and "no tax on tips" come with so many restrictions and limits that many people who expected a windfall are actually disappointed when the "windfall" was much smaller than they expected. And by Nov. 3, they will long have forgotten what they did get. Additionally, not all workers have overtime pay or tips.
He can try to woo Kennedy and the MAHA vote all he wants, but on a major MAHA issue the administration did something the MAHA bases hates. It passed regulations to boost the use of glyphosate (used in the notorious herbicide Roundup), which for MAHA moms is roughly equivalent to removing any limits on how much arsenic companies can put in baby food. In the broader world, no one knows about this, but in the MAHA world, this regulation is absolutely toxic and no number of speeches is going to change that. It gives the Democrats an excellent talking point: "Trump wants to poison your baby so a giant German chemical company can have bigger profits."
Another problem area for Trump is Israel. Many America Firsters were not happy with what Israel is doing in Gaza and what Israel is doing in Iran makes it even worse. There is no easy way out for Trump on this as dropping Israel and aligning with Iran has even bigger problems for him.
And firing three women in the cabinet is surely going to be a big turnoff for some women, although there he could save himself if he wants to. All he has to do is replace each of them with other women. The trouble is he has already replaced Kristi Noem with Markwayne Mullin and there is no indication that he has a female AG or Secretary of Labor up his sleeve.
Another huge problem is the loss of Latinos on account of the ICE raids. Cutting back on the raids for a few months is not going to make Latinos forget how ICE has been terrorizing Latinos for a year. So despite his new focus on the midterms. we don't see anh obvious actions he can realistically take that bring back disaffected groups. It is helpful for Republicans that he is apparently aware of the problems. But he is not aware of any solutions. (V)