Are the US midterms the beginning of the end of the Trump political project?

A week before Americans vote in the midterm elections, Donald Trump is asking them to do something unusual: pretend he is on the ballot. He is not, but at rallies he has repeatedly made the request. At one in South Carolina in August, he argued that he does great when his name is on the ballot, but that when it isn't, his people don't come out and don't vote for senators or congressmen.

There is history behind the worry. In 2024, Trump beat Kamala Harris by assembling a coalition with little record of voting Republican. Working-class and lower-income voters helped deliver Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin. Hispanic voters helped turn the sun belt states of Arizona and Nevada. Pew found his voters were markedly more diverse than before: 20 per cent non-white in 2024, against 14 per cent in 2020 and 10 per cent in 2016. A New York Times analysis found that virtually every demographic group swung toward him, with the biggest shifts among young Black and Hispanic voters.

Part of the 2024 strategy was to pull in people who usually stay home. Among those who voted in 2024 but not in 2020, Pew estimated Trump led Harris by 12 percentage points. Strategists at the time wondered whether he had set off a lasting realignment that would favour Republicans.

Two years on, that looks doubtful. Turning irregular voters into a dependable party base is hard, and as the cost of living bites, many do not appear to have stayed. The Hispanic voters who swung to Trump have either swung back to the Democrats or are choosing to sit this election out. The turnout that helped him two years ago may now be part of his undoing.

The numbers behind that are stark. YouGov and the Economist track approval of US presidents regularly. In his first term, Trump was in net negative territory almost from the day he took office; Joe Biden took seven months to get there. In his second term Trump has fallen much further. A week out from polling day, the Economist recorded his net approval at -27, with 34 per cent approving and 61 per cent disapproving. No president has recorded a lower figure just before a midterm since World War II.

The president's party nearly always loses ground in the House, and Republicans need to lose only three seats to lose control. Forecasters are accordingly tipping a Democratic win there. Democrats also lead in polls in more than enough Senate races to take that chamber, though many of those leads sit within the margin of error.

Texas is the most tempting prize. Democrats have not won a Senate seat there since 1988, yet their candidate, James Talarico, is leading Republican Ken Paxton in polling. Republicans look vulnerable in deep red territory generally: in recent weeks Trump has held rallies in Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma and Alabama, which is not what a confident party does.

The stakes extend beyond this one night. Trump will be in office for two more years, but American politics always has an election around the corner, and once the midterms pass, attention turns to 2028. A poor result could loosen his hold on public attention and on his party. He regularly backs preferred candidates in Republican primaries and believes his endorsement carries weight. The open question is whether Republicans eyeing future runs will embrace his political project or keep their distance once he is seen as a lame duck.