Everyone who follows politics knows that midterm elections almost always go badly for the president’s party. How badly, however, depends in part on the president’s decisions. One reason for the pattern, after all, is that presidents fall prey to hubris following success in their own elections. Had Donald Trump made a few different choices since his reelection, Republicans might not be looking at the possibility of a beatdown on Nov. 3.
Preeminent among those choices: the Iran war. Trump didn’t have to order the military to strike the Iranian regime, and some of his advisers reportedly argued against it. Nor did he have to take this step without getting congressional authorization. If he, or Congress, had decided against this confrontation, voters wouldn’t be dealing with high gas prices or the effects of high diesel prices on other goods. Even if the legislature had approved the war, a debate would have forced the Trump administration to make a more coherent case for it and thus earn public buy-in.
Trump’s tariffs are similarly unpopular, and voters blame them for raising prices. It is probably too much to imagine an alternative universe in which Trump refrained from seeking such high levies. He gives every impression that he genuinely believes they’re needed to revive U.S. manufacturing, shrink the trade deficit and force foreign countries to treat U.S. companies better.
But he didn’t have to raise them the way he did, across the board and with no clear congressional authorization. Trump might well have gotten Republicans to give him higher tariffs in their big budget bill of 2025. But those tariffs would have been scaled back, more predictable and therefore less damaging.
Trump’s voters expected him to take serious action on immigration, and there was no way to do so without incurring some backlash. But the president chose not to place a high priority on deporting the most dangerous illegal immigrants first or to push for a tougher e-verify system to block employers from hiring ineligible workers. He chose, instead, a strategy of confrontational enforcement in deep-blue jurisdictions, which predictably led to tragic outcomes that helped turn a political asset into a liability.
The overall inflation rate is largely the responsibility of the Federal Reserve, not the president. It is possible, though, that the central bank would have fought inflation harder early in Trump’s term if he had not been pressuring it to cut interest rates on the grounds that inflation had already been defeated. The Fed ended up making its first rate hike in three years in September. Higher interest rates are a source of electoral pain for the GOP, but acting earlier would have brought prices down faster. Instead, the country has both interest and inflation rates that are too high for voters’ comfort.
Then there’s the matter of Republicans’ economic messaging, which has been abysmal. Trump set the tone by saying Americans could do without as many consumer goods — remember his riff about kids having too many dolls? — and by calling concerns about affordability a Democratic hoax. Republican senators and Cabinet secretaries are telling people that they should try buying less-expensive meats.
Voters might be less angry at Trump and his party if they thought he were at least trying to bring prices down. Instead they can see he has other priorities, from redesigning the architecture of Washington, D.C., to launching cryptocurrency ventures. Priorities that voters don’t share.
In a few key races, Trump has also failed to do the work of a party leader. He could have cajoled Sen. John Cornyn of Texas to the exits — say, by offering him a Cabinet job — or rescued him by giving him a strong endorsement early enough to matter. He could have refrained from enticing Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina not to seek reelection. He didn’t have to anoint Darline Graham as a candidate for a full Senate term in South Carolina. Had he made different choices, Republicans would have a better chance in these states, and maybe others, given how much money they are having to spend in Texas.
All of these alternate decisions are conceivable in the sense that Trump had free will, and none of them would have required much foresight. They are unrealistic, however, in that they would have run against the grain of the president’s personality. Going through Congress on trade would have meant giving up the pleasure of having the world hang on his every Truth Social post to learn about the next government policy. Making the cost of living a bigger priority than the White House ballroom would have meant overruling his actual preferences.
Republican voters and politicians have tied themselves tightly to Trump’s character. Part of the price for that decision, too, will be paid in a few days.
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