Republicans are shaking in their boots as the upcoming midterm elections approach, according to numerous reports. In a Wednesday episode of his podcast, Sen. Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, said his home state “is excruciatingly close,” adding that “we could lose Texas. Let me say that again: We could lose Texas. And by the way, not just the Senate race. We could lose the entire statewide election in Texas. That’s how close these numbers are.”
According to Politico, House Republicans are not quietly discussing whether or not they will lose their majority, but counting the number of seats. “It could be a pretty brutal evening,” a senior Republican told the outlet. The mood in the White House is “gloomy,” the New York Times reported, as advisers close to the White House predict at least losing the House, if not the Senate.
This is apparently why the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has invested nearly half a billion dollars in the race, mostly in his own US PAC. PAC spending was concentrated largely in Texas at about $48 million, followed by Michigan and Ohio at about $9 million and Iowa at $4 million. According to CNN, Musk’s spending propensity “makes him the largest revealed donor in modern American politics and one of the Republican Party’s biggest benefactors.”
But some are already looking beyond next Tuesday to see how President Donald Trump might respond, and not just by contesting the results, which is more than expected and is arguably already being attempted. But the president’s legal options are limited, so even if he tries to seize voting machines, declare a national emergency or ram the federal government into the election process, there’s a chance it could fail. Jonathan Diaz, director of voting advocacy and partnerships at the Campaign Legal Center, told Forbes that the president can “certainly try” to intervene, but there “just can’t do much.”
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Still, most analysts expect the president to escalate his dual wars, trade wars with America’s partners and the war in Iran that Trump began alongside Israel in late February 2026. The Pentagon is slowly building up its military presence in the Middle East, including developing plans to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, energy infrastructure and stockpiles of missiles and drones.
“It might be difficult for congressional Democrats to prevent Trump from taking a course of action to which he is strongly committed, but they may still increase the political costs associated with moving forward,” Andrew Gawthorpe, a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Center, told The Independent. “Faced with a hostile Congress, Trump may become even more willing to simply ignore domestic opposition and pursue controversial and unpopular policies, as he did by attacking Iran or threatening to annex Greenland. »
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