The midterm elections are still nine months away, but Democrats and Republicans are already jockeying for control of Congress. President Donald Trump recently called for a nationalization of elections, while the Supreme Court upheld California Democrats’ plan to redraw congressional districts to their advantage, responding to similar gerrymandering in Republican states.
Meanwhile, the U.S. democratic system is under strain, with reduced public trust, low overall levels of voter turnout, and increased polarization.
To explain what’s at stake for the 2026 midterm elections and U.S. democracy, we turned to USC Price School Provost Professor Jeffery Jenkins, a political historian and expert on Congress, and Research Assistant Professor Mindy Romero, Director of the Center for Inclusive Democracy. Their answers were lightly edited for length and clarity.
What does history tell us about how the party that controls the White House fairs during the midterms?
Jenkins: The president’s party typically loses seats in both the House and Senate in midterm elections. The negative effect is more pronounced in the House than in the Senate, in part because of the scale of potential loss: all House seats are up for reelection every two years, whereas only about 1/3 of Senate seats are.
And the negative effect in the House has spanned different eras in American history with only four cases of the president’s party gaining seats since the Civil War: 1902 (shortly after Theodore Roosevelt replaced William McKinley, following the latter’s assassination), 1934 (the first election after Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the Democrats’ realigning election victory of 1932), 1998 (following the government shutdown battles between congressional Republicans and President Bill Clinton, in which the GOP was largely blamed), and 2002 (the first election after the 9/11 terror attacks, when the country rallied around President George W. Bush).
What has the Trump Administration done to try to affect the outcome of the midterms?
Romero: The president, really since before he was elected in 2016, has claimed that we have fraudulent elections. Of course, we know in 2020 that Trump lost the election, but he went on a very public campaign to argue that the election was stolen from him, and that there was widespread fraud. We know that there was not widespread fraud, this has been determined by the courts, but now that Trump is back in the White House, he’s still been talking about this idea of voter fraud and fraudulent elections.
He’s put forward executive orders that would invalidate ballots that arrive after Election Day or add voter identification requirements, among other things. He has been challenging election results for a number of years, but has really ramped up the rhetoric. We recently saw federal agents raid the election center in Fulton County, Georgia.
The courts have nullified much of the president’s executive orders, but I think the damage is already getting done. If there are doubts about the integrity of the midterm elections, many are concerned that it leaves open the door, for instance, of maybe congressional leaders waiting on or denying the seating of winners of congressional elections. It generates a lot of concern around what could happen leading up to or after November.
How could efforts by both parties to gerrymander districts ahead of the elections affect the outcome and aftermath?
Jenkins: Extreme partisan gerrymandering will ultimately result in reduced competition. That is, there will be fewer truly competitive House districts. To the extent that Democratic and Republican gerrymandering efforts “cancel out,” it won’t necessarily affect the election results. (Although it appears that the Democrats might have a small advantage because of their gerrymandering efforts.) But the future of congressional politics looks bleak in many ways, as parties will lock in control of House districts and “out party” voters in various states (like Republicans in California) will feel increasingly disenfranchised.
What made the recent gerrymandering efforts unusual?
Romero: When we’re talking about redistricting, it is almost always in response to the once-in-a-decade U.S. Census. We have had mid-decade redistricting in some states in the past, but it is not very common, and usually there are a set of reasons around it.
This time around, it began with Texas, and Trump was very explicit, asking the governor and the legislature to give him five more seats, so Republicans wouldn’t lose the House. Political gerrymandering is not illegal but because it was so late and so targeted, that’s what really stood out.
What that kicked off was a series of conversations, and in many states, actual actions taken to redistrict mid-decade that wouldn’t have happened. California was the biggest counter to that, and in the process, both Democrats and Republicans were looking for political gain.
How would a Democratic Party takeover of the House affect U.S. governance? How could that constrain President Trump and Republicans?
Jenkins: A Democratic Party takeover of the House would make it harder for President Trump to govern in the ways that he would like. A Democratic House would push back on Republican cuts in social spending (for example) and require more deal making when it comes time to raise the debt ceiling. But, in some ways, a Democratic takeover of the House would matter more symbolically — the Democrats would appear on the national stage more in critical moments, given their control of one of the congressional branches. That is, the optics would be better for the Democrats. We would see less of Mike Johnson and more of Hakeem Jeffries. Strictly on policy issues, though, given the filibuster in the Senate, the Democratic minority can do some of the same things to limit Republican governing that a Democratic majority in the House could do.
What’s at stake for the state of U.S. democracy?
Romero: U.S. democracy is in a very challenged state right now. Most experts around the world that track the status of democracies say that the U.S. is showing the recognized signs of being in significant decline. Historically, we’ve had really low participation, low turnout compared to other places around the world. I think what we’re really starting to come to terms with is that many people also don’t really believe in their democracy or government. There’s lots of survey data that show us that people’s level of trust in their government or their democracy is at an all-time low.
What is noteworthy is, before this redistricting battle, almost all of the recent narrative around fraud was coming from Trump and some other Republican leaders, and largely Democrats, were pushing back, saying that elections are free and fair. Then all of a sudden, around the redistricting battle, the words “fraud” and “rigging” were used on both sides. California’s Proposition 50 is literally called “The Election Rigging Response Act.”
So everybody’s using that word “rigging” and that’s really dangerous. It’s an example of actions that we can point to that indicate a democracy is in decline.
