President Donald Trump on Tuesday predicted that Republicans should perform well during the November 2026 midterm elections but warned of significant losses if they don’t.
During a meeting with Republican senators at the White House’s Rose Garden, Trump predicted that the GOP “should do fantastically well” during the 2026 elections.
Historically, the party of a new president has a tendency to lose congressional seats in elections two years later, although Trump is currently serving out his second, nonconsecutive term.
Democrats were able to wrest control from Republicans during the 2018 midterm elections after Trump won the first time in 2016. In the midterm elections in 2022, two years after President Joe Biden’s win, the Republican Party won control of the House.
“We’re giving you the biggest tax cuts in history, all of these things,” the president told the Republican senators on Tuesday. “It all adds up that we should do fantastically well in the midterms. The only thing wrong with the midterms is that—statistically, when you look—a president gets elected and for some reason, and nobody, not even the great John Thune, can explain to me ... for some reason, you lose the midterms. I don’t know why.”
Currently, Republicans hold a 53-seat majority in the Senate and hold a six-seat advantage in the House over Democrats.
Later, Trump told the lawmakers that “there should be no reason” for Republicans to take a loss next year.
“We have to win the midterms,” the president said. “Otherwise, all of the things that we’ve done, so many of them, are going to be taken away by the radical left.”
Earlier this year, several Democrats said that their party’s chances at winning were boosted following the passage of the Republican-led One Big Beautiful Bill Act, foreshadowing that Democratic lawmakers up for reelection may use the bill in their campaigns.
Commenting on the midterms, Schumer said that he believes there are “many states you wouldn’t think are in play are in play” and that “our map has expanded.” He did not elaborate on the specific states.
The comments from Trump on Tuesday come as the government shutdown that started on Oct. 1 entered its fourth week, after Democrats and Republicans in Congress could not come to an agreement on a stopgap measure that would fund the government. So far, the Senate has voted 11 times on reopening the government with no success.
Democrats have sought to add health care protections, including insurance subsidies that are due to expire at the end of the year, to any bill to reopen the government. Republicans have said that such tactics are akin to a hostage situation and that any subsidy extension should be considered separately.
