It’s all but a mathematical certainty that Democrats will take the House in November’s midterms. And with President Donald Trump’s polling numbers perilously low and dropping steadily, an even bigger potential prize has come into focus for Democrats: the U.S. Senate, with its constitutional power to confirm (or block) appointments to the Justice Department and Supreme Court. Trump seemingly has accepted this new reality and begun to act accordingly.
Recent history and present measurables tell us that the Democrats are primed to seize majority control of the House in November. The current margin is slim: 219 Republicans, 213 Democrats, 1 Independent, and 4 vacancies. Trump currently sports subterranean approval ratings in the low– to mid-30s, and Democrats consistently lead Republicans by about five to six percentage points in polling on a generic 2026 midterm ballot. And with Virginia’s adoption this week of a heavily-gerrymandered redistricting scheme, Democrats hold a slight nationwide electoral advantage among all states that have recently rejiggered their maps for the upcoming House midterms.
Those numbers dovetail with a bedrock historical trend: The party of the incumbent president has lost House seats in every midterm over the past twenty years, with a maximum loss of 63 seats (Barack Obama and Democrats in 2010), a minimum loss of nine (Trump in 2018), and an average loss of 31. In 2026, a Democratic gain of just five seats – which would be the smallest in over two decades for an opposition party – would ensure a majority.
That’ll be a big deal, of course. A Democratic-controlled House can block Trump’s legislative initiatives. House Democrats surely will hold hearings and issue subpoenas (including, perhaps, to the President himself) on everything from the Epstein files to war powers. And, in theory, a majority-Democratic House can impeach Trump for his most extreme abuses of power – notwithstanding potential squeamishness after two prior failed impeachments and the practical near-impossibility of a two-thirds majority to convict in the Senate.
And now, unexpectedly, control of the Senate is genuinely in play for the 2026 midterms. Republicans currently hold a 53-47 margin, but that majority is realistically in doubt. Prediction markets are deeply imperfect but also probative of broad trends, and they’ve taken a drastic turn in recent weeks. Throughout 2025 and early 2026, both Polymarket and Kalshi had Republicans comfortably favored to hold the Senate by likelihoods running from 70% to 80%. But suddenly in mid-March – shortly after Trump careened into war with Iran – the odds flipped. Both leading markets now have Democrats slightly favored (by a 52% to 55% likelihood) to take control of the Senate.
Indeed, Trump seems attuned to the potentially catastrophic loss of the upper house of Congress. His recent spate of firings – and unsubtle shoving of key players towards the exit door – suggest he understands that the Senate might not remain a turnstile for his appointments after the 2026 midterms.
In March and April, Trump abruptly fired in quick succession two fiercely loyal (if preposterously inept) partisans, DHS Secretary Kristin Noem and Attorney General Pam Bondi. Both deserved to go, but this was a quick trigger even for Trump. Consider that, during his first term, Trump mercilessly flayed AG Jeff Sessions in public — calling him “scared stiff and missing in action,” “beleaguered,” and “DISGRACEFUL!” — but nonetheless left him in place until after the 2018 midterms.
The President can still get his replacement nominees confirmed, for the time being. Markwayne Mullin breezed through the Senate in April on a party-line (plus one Democrat) vote to succeed Noem at DHS. But if the Senate flips to Democratic control, he’ll have a miserable time getting successors approved for Bondi, and potentially other key nominees.
Kash Patel might be next up. The Atlantic reported that, notwithstanding the statutory ten-year term for the FBI Director, Trump has grown sick of Patel’s tipsy diva tactics and has recently considered firing him. Patel, in turn, has reportedly grown “deeply concerned” about his job security, apparently for good reason. (This week, Patel filed a defamation lawsuit against The Atlantic, which has vigorously defended its reporting.)
As with Bondi, if Trump dumps Patel now, he can install a new FBI Director relatively smoothly while Republicans still hold the Senate. But if he waits until after midterms, the Democrats might take control and block any candidate who is remotely as unqualified and partisan as Patel.
Of course, the Supreme Court poses the highest stakes of all. The two oldest Justices are Trump’s most reliable stalwarts, Clarence Thomas (77 years old) and Samuel Alito (76). CBS News reports that neither are planning to retire in 2026, but that hasn’t stopped Trump from cajoling them to step aside.
Last week, the President dispensed with the subtleties that typically accompany backchannel surrogate campaigns to persuade justices to retire while an ideologically-aligned president holds office, and said it all right out loud. “I think he [Alito] is one of the great justices of all time,” Trump proclaimed on Fox Business. Plainly in anticipation of nominating a far younger replacement, he added, “It’d be nice to say, ‘Now I have somebody for 40 years.” Trump provocatively referenced Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who declined to retire during Obama’s presidency and died while in office at the end of Trump’s first term, enabling Trump to nominate Amy Coney Barrett in her place.
The President reportedly has developed a shortlist of candidates in their 40s and 50s to replace Thomas or Scalia. If either were to step down now or over the summer, Trump could assuredly get their replacements confirmed quickly in the Senate. Barrett, for example, went from nomination to confirmation in just 27 days in 2020, with Trump in the White House and Republicans controlling the Senate.
But if either Justice waits until after midterms to retire, it’s essentially a coin toss that Democrats take the Senate. From there, could Democrats stonewall for the better part of two years? After they got burned so badly by Republican Senator Mitch McConnell – who blocked Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland without a floor vote for eleven months in 2016 (which held that seat open for replacement by Trump’s pick, Neil Gorsuch, in 2017) – don’t be surprised if Democrats take just as hard a line against any post-midterm Trump nominee.
Viewed in one light, Trump’s recent conduct bears his hallmark tendencies towards impulsivity and emotionality. But it also reflects the rational realization that things have gotten bad enough for Republicans that the Senate – previously viewed to be safe – could well flip, jeopardizing the President’s ability to install key appointees in his own Cabinet for the next few years, and on the Supreme Court for decades to come. Trump is breaking some of his own china now, and this might be his last chance to replace it.
