The Numbers Don't Lie

Trump is walking into the 2026 midterm cycle in a genuinely weak position.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Trump is sitting at some of his lowest approval ratings ever, with support cratering specifically on immigration — the signature issue he rode to victory. Republican consultant Rob Stutzman told the LA Times bluntly: "He stands at a moment of rapidly declining political capital."

Bob Shrum, director of the Dornsife Center for the Political Future at USC, put it even harder: "I don't think the country sees Trump as the solution to anything at this point."

That assessment comes from people who study political capital for a living — not just cable news talking heads.

Trump's Real Problem: He Keeps Punching His Own Team

The Hill has been tracking what can only be called a GOP civil war in slow motion.

Trump has spent months actively targeting Republican lawmakers who showed even a hint of independence from his agenda. According to The Hill's reporting, he's moved to oust GOP members over perceived disloyalty — often directly against the wishes of congressional leadership. His own party's leaders. The people who are supposed to be on his side.

This is a strategic disaster. You don't win midterms by kneecapping your own caucus.

While Democrats are unified in opposition, Trump is fragmenting the coalition he needs to hold the House and Senate. That's basic political math.

225 Executive Orders in Year One

Trump signed 225 executive orders in his first year back in office, according to a tracking page maintained by Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN). That's an extraordinary pace.

Some of those orders made sense — designating fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction on December 15, cracking down on federal bureaucracy. Others are harder to defend. He signed an order in August to make federal architecture "beautiful again." Fine. He also set up a $1.8 billion sovereign wealth fund structure and a $5 million "Gold Card" visa for foreign nationals — that's government picking winners with taxpayer-backed tools.

The Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan government management organization, published a January 2026 analysis calling Trump's first year "the most radical transformation of the federal government in over a half-century." Their finding: the government is now less prepared for a terrorist attack, a natural disaster, or a public health crisis than it was before each of those categories' worst modern disasters. The administration disputes them. The report names specific cuts — including to the FBI task force tracking foreign influence operations and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency — that deserve a straight answer from the White House.

Note: the Partnership for Public Service leans institutionalist and has a track record of opposing aggressive government restructuring regardless of which party does it. Factor that in. But the specific agency-level cuts they cite are documented.

The Government Shutdown Nobody Should Forget

The Partnership for Public Service also flagged the 43-day government shutdown that began in October — the longest in U.S. history. It happened on the GOP's watch, with a Republican president and a Republican Congress that couldn't get its own members in line.

Fiscal responsibility means funding the government you choose to run. A 43-day shutdown isn't small government — it's chaotic government. There's a difference.

Democrats Are Trapped and They Know It

Democrats are in serious trouble too, just for different reasons.

The Hill obtained and reported on a Democratic National Committee autopsy — the DNC's own internal postmortem on its electoral struggles. The conclusion from inside the party's own ranks: Democrats have spent nearly a decade in permanent fight mode against Trump, and some within the party openly worry they're stuck there. Perpetual outrage without a positive agenda isn't a political strategy. It's a brand.

Voters don't just want someone to be anti-Trump. They want to know what you're FOR.

The DNC autopsy reportedly acknowledges this. Whether the party's leadership acts on it is another question entirely.

What Mainstream Coverage Is Getting Wrong

Left-leaning outlets like the LA Times are framing this moment almost entirely as "Trump is weak, Democrats will win." That's premature. Trump has defied every political obituary written about him since 2015.

Right-leaning media is doing the opposite — dismissing poll numbers as fake and treating Project 2025 architect Paul Dans's quote to the LA Times ("the last year has been phenomenal") as representative of the broader electorate. It's not. Dans runs a think tank. He's not a swing voter in Michigan.

The real story is simpler and less satisfying for both teams: an incumbent president with declining approval ratings, a disorganized opposition party, and midterm elections where nobody has a clear advantage yet.

The Bottom Line

If you pay federal taxes — and if you're reading this, you do — the government is more expensive, less efficient, and more chaotic than it was two years ago. That's true whether you blame Trump's disruption or the entrenched bureaucracy he was trying to disrupt. The 43-day shutdown cost billions in lost productivity and delayed services. The executive order blitz has tied federal agencies in knots. And a president punishing members of his own party for independent thought is not how a functioning republic operates.

2026 is coming fast. Both parties need to answer a simple question: what are you actually going to DO for the people writing the checks?

So far, neither has a great answer.