Like many second-term presidents, Donald Trump is pursuing a more activist foreign policy in search of legacy-making accomplishments that are becoming increasingly elusive at home as the 2026 midterm election cycle gets underway. In the last few weeks alone, he has hosted nearly a dozen foreign leaders at the White House, ordered military strikes against alleged South American drug smugglers, promised a $20 billion bailout to Argentina (now being reduced to about $5 billion), personally brokered trade deals across Asia, and threatened regime change in Venezuela. More challenging initiatives remain a work in progress, including a fragile, structurally unstable Gaza ceasefire and ongoing Ukraine peace talks, where proposed solutions have included NATO-style security guarantees against further Russian aggression that would be shouldered by the U.S. and key European allies.
Trump’s MAGA base has mostly been deferential to his foreign policy moves, especially in Central and South America, where he has focused lately. The proposed Argentina bailout has been a notable exception, drawing strong opposition from voters, libertarians, and farm-state Republicans who have criticized it as fiscally reckless. On Gaza and Ukraine, response has been mixed. Conservative media have cast the Gaza ceasefire as evidence that America First 2.0 could deliver a complex foreign policy outcome without U.S. boots on the ground. But some MAGA figures questioned whether backing Israel serves U.S. interests, and younger Republicans have increasingly viewed current aid levels as excessive. On Ukraine, MAGA non-interventionists have urged a pause in aid and warned that security guarantees could pull the U.S. into a wider war, even as Republican voters as a whole have become more supportive of arming Ukraine in response to Trump’s tougher rhetoric toward Russia.
MAGA deference aside, polls suggest many voters view Trump’s focus on foreign affairs as offering limited tangible benefit while diverting attention from key domestic issues. A plurality (46%), including a slim majority of independents (51%), say the Trump administration is not spending enough time on their top priorities — the issues that shape their view of the president’s job performance. For 44%, those priorities are economic, including tariffs and trade; only 4% name foreign policy. Nearly half of voters (48%) say America’s leadership in the world has weakened under Trump, and just 37% say his peace deals make the world safer. Heading into the midterms, shifting emphasis from high-profile foreign initiatives to Republicans’ standing on economic issues — where Democrats now hold a 4-point edge on keeping America prosperous — could be critical to helping Trump’s party keep control of the House come 2027.
Next year’s midterm elections could be among the least competitive in modern history, with as few as 16 congressional seats projected to be true toss-ups. Democrats need only to win three additional seats to reclaim control of the House — and historically, the party out of power in the White House has gained an average of 28 seats in a president’s first midterm. These considerations have locked both parties into an intense competition to boost their advantage by redrawing the boundaries of existing congressional districts outside of the usual once-a-decade process designed to reflect population changes.
As of this writing, new congressional maps adopted by Republican-held legislatures are giving the party an advantage in three Democratic-held districts across Missouri, North Carolina, and Ohio. Florida could follow suit, making another couple of competitive districts more favorable to Republicans, but the party’s chances to strengthen their position in Indiana and Kansas are far less certain. On the Democratic side, new maps in California and Utah make four to six current seats more favorable to the party’s candidates, and two more are possible in Maryland and Illinois, where redistricting efforts are in early stages.
Taken together, Republicans stand a chance of gaining three to five seats through redistricting, compared with four to eight for Democrats. A Supreme Court ruling reinstating a recently redrawn electoral map in Texas would tilt five more Democratic-held seats to the right, bringing the total number of newly Republican-leaning districts to as many as ten — and leaving a slight overall Republican advantage once Democratic gains are taken into account. Another Supreme Court ruling, on a challenge to majority-minority congressional districts in Louisiana, is expected by July and could theoretically shift a few additional seats toward Republicans, although the timeframe for that to happen is very tight.
To be sure, Democrats are facing a more challenging electoral map, with 13 seats in districts Trump won in 2024, compared with only three Republican-held seats in districts carried by Kamala Harris. Latest polls show Democrats ahead on the generic congressional ballot (which measures voters’ preference for a party representing them in Congress) by 5 percentage points, an advantage that has grown since March but remains smaller than at a similar point in the 2018 election cycle, the last time the party won control of the House in the midterms. Democrats also benefit from an uptick in voter enthusiasm following a strong performance in this month’s state and local races. If they can coalesce around affordability as the party’s main message, they could again prove history right by flipping the House, this cycle’s smaller, tighter electoral battlefield notwithstanding.
After months of downplaying public concerns about the rising cost of living, President Trump is pivoting to a 2026 midterm campaign message of “making America affordable” with a series of actions aimed at reversing a growing deficit in an area of traditional Republican strength. Polls show that perceptions of the Trump economy continue to erode and most voters (65%), including nearly a third of Republicans (32%), say his policies are driving up grocery prices. Voters are evenly split on which party they trust more to manage the economy overall (38% Democrats, 40% Republicans), but give Democrats a clear edge on making things more affordable (+10 points), raising wages (+14), and reducing healthcare costs (+21). A majority (60%, including 39% of Republicans) say they are tuning out Trump’s economic rhetoric, believing he makes conditions sound better than they are.
So far, the Trump administration has responded by cutting tariffs on about 200 food products and lowering prices on some medicines. Next on the agenda is a healthcare proposal to extend expiring Obama-era health insurance subsidies that were at the center of the recent government shutdown. That bill currently appears short of votes in the House, but lawmakers are also weighing a bipartisan effort to reduce housing costs, the second-most frequently cited affordability challenge (38%, after groceries at 45% and ahead of healthcare at 34%). Heading into the midterms, Republicans are expected to tout the Trump tax cuts passed earlier this year, although the president’s proposed $2,000 tariff “dividend” checks now appear a remote possibility. We will be watching to see whether Republicans’ new affordability focus resonates with voters — and whether Democrats can maintain and build on their current advantage.
