By Ashok Nilakantan Ayers
WASHINGTON: With the November 3 midterm elections less than a month away, the battle for Congress is beginning to look less like a conventional contest between Democrats and Republicans and more like a referendum on Donald Trump’s second presidency — with the outcome likely to depend on whether Democrats can convert Republican disaffection into actual votes.
Republicans still hold important structural advantages. They control the White House, the House and the Senate, possess an enormous financial war chest and are campaigning in states where the GOP has dominated for years.
But the political terrain has shifted sharply enough that Republican strategists are now spending heavily in territory they had expected to defend with relative ease.
Since September 1, Republicans have booked more than $700 million in new congressional advertising, compared with more than $430 million by Democrats, according to an NBC News analysis of AdImpact data. Nearly seven of every 10 newly booked dollars in the Senate races are Republican money. The spending surge is particularly striking because it is flowing into states such as Texas and Kansas that Republicans normally regard as safe territory.
That spending tells two stories simultaneously. Republicans have the money to fight almost everywhere. But they are increasingly being forced to fight almost everywhere.
Texas is perhaps the clearest example. Democrat James Talarico is challenging Republican Ken Paxton in a state that Democrats have not won statewide in more than three decades. Republican-aligned groups have responded with a massive advertising campaign, including more than $115 million booked by Texas PAC in roughly a month. Ohio, Michigan, Kansas and Nebraska have also become unexpectedly competitive.
The question is whether money can overcome the larger political environment. CNN’s recent reporting points to an increasingly uncomfortable answer for Republicans. Voters are telling pollsters that the economy, inflation, healthcare and the cost of everyday life matter enormously to their congressional vote. In one CNN report, 68% of respondents called the economy extremely important, while inflation registered at 60% and healthcare at 54%. Only 27% approved of Trump’s handling of the economy in the CNN polling cited.
That is where the Democratic strategy is becoming more sophisticated. Democrats are not simply asking voters whether they like Trump. They are asking whether life has become easier or harder under his presidency.
Groceries. Gasoline. Rent. Electricity. Healthcare. Household budgets. The “kitchen-table” argument is particularly potent because it converts an abstract political judgment into an everyday calculation. CNN has reported that Democratic strategists intend to make the cost of living the centre of their closing argument, arguing that Trump’s policies — including the consequences of the Iran war and tariffs — have contributed to higher household costs.
More important, there are signs that the argument is reaching some voters who were part of Trump’s coalition. CNN political coverage has described a movement among Latino voters away from Trump and Republicans, with economic disappointment and immigration enforcement cited as major sources of disillusionment. Other CNN reporting has pointed to Republican voters themselves slipping away from Trump, particularly in traditionally conservative states.
That does not necessarily mean those voters are becoming Democrats. And that distinction could determine the election.
A Republican voter unhappy with Trump may vote Democratic, vote for an independent, stay home or simply decline to vote for the Republican candidate. For Democrats to produce a genuine congressional wave, dissatisfaction has to become Democratic votes at a scale large enough to overcome Republican turnout.
The House is therefore the Democrats’ more plausible prize. Every seat is contested, and the national political environment matters enormously because suburban districts and traditionally Republican territory can become competitive when the president’s approval collapses. Democratic hopes are strengthened by what analysts describe as an unusually favourable environment: an unpopular incumbent president, energized opposition voters and Republican candidates being forced to defend seats in places that previously seemed secure.
The Senate is a more complicated proposition. The map remains more favourable to Republicans, and Democrats must win races in states where the GOP retains a formidable partisan advantage. Yet the very fact that Texas, Kansas, Ohio and other traditionally Republican states are competitive changes the arithmetic. Republicans cannot take those seats for granted, and every dollar and every presidential appearance devoted to defending them is a dollar and appearance not available elsewhere.
Trump understands the danger. He has increasingly behaved as though he himself were on the ballot, urging voters to turn out as if they were voting directly on his presidency. His campaign schedule has taken him into deeply Republican territory, including Nebraska, where economic anxiety among farmers and truckers has become part of the political argument. Reuters reported that Trump used a Nebraska rally to warn voters about Democrats while promising measures aimed at easing fuel costs.
The symbolism is important. Presidents normally campaign in competitive territory during midterms. Trump is also being drawn into states that should, under normal circumstances, require little presidential attention. That is why the Republican advertising surge may be read as both strength and vulnerability.
Republicans can afford to spend hundreds of millions of dollars. But they are spending that money because the political map has become unexpectedly dangerous.
Democrats, meanwhile, face their own problem. An election driven overwhelmingly by opposition to Trump can produce a majority, but it does not necessarily produce a mandate. Democratic candidates must persuade voters that they have an alternative rather than merely an objection. And in some deeply Republican states, a flawed Democratic candidate can give the GOP an escape route by turning the election back into a referendum on the Democrat.
The Senate therefore could remain much closer than the national mood suggests. The House is different. A modest shift in Republican support, combined with Democratic enthusiasm and Republican voters staying home, could produce a substantial change in the chamber’s composition.
The decisive question may ultimately be neither ideology nor party loyalty. It may be exhaustion. Voters who once supported Trump because they believed he would lower costs, restore economic security or change America’s direction are now asking whether those promises have been fulfilled. CNN reporting has captured the central Democratic argument: Americans experience the economy through what they pay every week, not through Washington’s statistics.
Republicans counter that the economy is stronger than voters believe and that Trump’s policies require time to produce results. But that argument faces the oldest problem in electoral politics: voters tend to judge an economy by what they experience rather than what politicians tell them they should be experiencing.
The November 3 election will therefore test something larger than control of Congress. It will test the durability of Trump’s political coalition.
If Republicans hold the House and Senate, the result will demonstrate that Trump’s base remained sufficiently disciplined to overcome economic dissatisfaction and Democratic enthusiasm.
If Democrats capture the House alone, it will be a warning that the president’s political strength has begun to erode. If Democrats take both chambers, the election will amount to a fundamental repudiation of the second Trump presidency and could transform Washington overnight.
For Republicans, the task is brutally simple: hold the coalition together. For Democrats, it is equally simple: make the voters who are drifting away from Trump actually cross the ballot line.
The money race is already enormous. The advertising war is intensifying. Trump is campaigning in territory once considered safe.
But beneath the television commercials and presidential rallies, the real election is being fought at the kitchen table — where Americans are deciding whether their lives are getting better, getting worse, or simply becoming too expensive to ignore. (IPA Service)
