Ian Bremmer: Is Trump sabotaging Republicans’ midterm hopes?

Few ideas live closer to the heart of U.S. President Donald Trump’s political brand than his consistent claim that the American left steals elections at his expense. If we don’t stop them, Trump warns his crowds, we won’t have a country anymore.

When he (fairly) defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, but without winning a majority of votes, he insisted that millions had voted against him illegally, and that the Democratic party had “rigg(ed) the election at polling booths.” When he lost to Joe Biden in 2020, he made these and more charges, and then encouraged a riot at the Capitol to try to halt the election’s certification. In 2024, he said Democrats had recognized his win over Kamala Harris only because the margin had been “too big to rig.”

Now Trump faces his final popular vote. His name won’t appear on the ballot this November, but the results of midterm elections for Congress are nearly always considered a referendum on the president and his performance. That’s especially true when, as now, his party holds majorities in both legislative houses.

This next election comes at a time of deep unpopularity for Trump. His poll numbers are lower at this point in his tenure than those of any second-term U.S. president in the past 80 years — with the sole exception of Richard Nixon on the eve of his disgraced resignation in 1974.

But this time, judging by his actions, Trump doesn’t seem to care about the election’s outcome. It’s true that, earlier this summer, he used a loudly trumpeted televised speech to rehash never-substantiated charges about previous elections, including accusations that China has created an “unprecedented election security nightmare” by hacking millions of voter registration files and manipulating social media (though not suggesting taking any policy actions against China in response). He also accused Democrats of hiding the evidence.

Trump also persists in pushing the Republican-controlled Congress for new laws that would require all voters to present identification at the polling place, a measure many of his fellow Republicans oppose. But none of this is new — and most of the Republicans now facing midterm challenges have done little to boost Trump’s various vote conspiracies.

The president also seems bent on sabotaging his party’s best re-election candidates more directly. In state after state, he has driven strong, if independently minded, Republican lawmakers into retirement and favoured GOP candidates who pledge loyalty to Trump over incumbents with a better chance of turning back popular Democratic party challengers.

He has repeatedly inflicted harm on the Republican leaders of the House and Senate by trying to force them to adopt deeply unpopular positions or pass legislation that has no chance of success. He has also pressed GOP lawmakers to cancel their August recess, crucial time for campaigning back in their states and districts.

Most importantly, Trump has devoted much attention to issues he cares about personally — a new ballroom for the White House, new monuments in Washington and political revenge against his enemies — while all but ignoring the problems of consumer price inflation that his war on Iran and tariff policies are helping sustain for voters across the nation.

So, what’s going on? Has Trump lost interest in protecting Republican majorities?

Democrats will almost certainly win control of the lower house, giving the opposition power to control government spending and launch official investigations into the president and his administration. They could even impeach him a third time. The upper house is a much closer call, but the opposition might still win a majority there too, undermining Trump’s ability to confirm senior officials, judges and even new Supreme Court justices.

But if Trump seems to be shrugging at his party’s endangered majorities, it’s because he knows he has little chance of success. Once the November votes are counted, the president will likely refuse to accept the outcome. It’s a safe bet that he will contest the close races, challenge the integrity of voting machines and election workers, particularly in majority Democratic states, and claim that shadowy foreign agents helped the opposition win. Trump is also likely to claim that Republicans would have won big had they simply done all that he demanded.

All this will further damage U.S. public faith in the institutions of American democracy, yet none of it will matter to the final election outcome. As in all Trump elections — the 2016, 2020 and 2024 presidential votes, as well as the 2018 and 2022 midterms — ballots will be counted, and the legitimate winners will claim their seats. Trump can’t change that, because the U.S. federal government has no constitutional role in the administration of American elections.

The outcomes will be decided in the states. Once again, the nation’s institutional guardrails will hold. Whatever Trump says and does in the days, weeks and years that follow, U.S. courts will reject his challenges. Even his follow Republicans, whatever they say when pressed for personal opinions on Trump’s claims, will move forward to prepare for the many post-Trump political and legislative battles to come.

In the process, we will begin to turn the page from the Trump chapters of American presidential history. Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and many others will carefully open their bids to break free from the decaying orbit of Trump’s political star. Without this president to unite them, Democrats will soon wage their own internecine battles. U.S. allies and rivals will begin to consider how the next U.S. president, Republican or Democrat, might change America’s political and policy trajectory.

For geopolitics, two years is a long time. New Trump stories remain to be written, and this president will continue to shape America’s politics and its role in a fast-changing and fragmented world. But this November’s midterm elections, however colourful the dramas that surround them, will mark a turning point for America’s recent history. Donald Trump’s ability to redefine what is possible inside the United States and the nation’s relations with friends and foes has reached its peak.

National Post