Americans vote on Tuesday - the most expensive election cycle in the country's history, according to AdImpact - to renew the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate. In the midterm elections, the party that occupies the White House faces the erosion of power. But this time there is something else at play. Donald Trump, who has hinted that federal aid to certain states will be subject to the success of Republican candidates, has toured the country with a slogan: "imagine I'm on the ballot." Surrogacy is all the more curious as Trump himself explains that, if his candidates succeed, the credit belongs to him; If they lose, it will be their fault. Behind this peculiar conception of political responsibility and patrimonial conception of public power, a question of scope arises: to what degree the Trump phenomenon depends on his character and what will remain when he leaves the presidency.
A little over a month ago (see Carry-on Luggage "United States facing the November test" on September 26), when examining the electoral prospects, I highlighted the social roots of Trumpism and the complications of Democrats in reformulating an alternative. Since then, the campaign has changed significantly. The president's approval rating has plummeted. The cost of living continues to lead concerns. Eggs, whose price became an obsession for Trump, have gone down, but almost everything else has gone up. Just because inflation moderates does not mean that the shopping basket returns to its previous levels. Likewise, citizens perceive how the increase in fuel prices is transferred to the entire economy. The war in Iran has come from the geopolitical arenas to homes.
More unexpected has been the emergence of corruption. A survey published by the Financial Times shows that 69% of registered voters - including Trump voters - are concerned about conflicts of interest and private use of office (illustratively, a similar study by FOX NEWS raises the figure to 88%). His family's businesses and the advantages obtained by his environment were known; What is new is that they are beginning to translate into political discontent. Perhaps because the enrichment of the powerful is especially irritating when it reduces the purchasing power of the population.
The forecasts point to the Democrats taking over the House of Representatives, while the Senate presents an open competition. Punishing the president's party is almost a tradition in American legislative elections, but some specific confrontations may be more revealing than the overall balance.
Texas provides an exceptional test. Trump anointed Ken Paxton, the attorney general of that State with numerous court cases and various controversies behind him, to the Senate, over a less risky veteran Republican. The polls show a technical tie with Democrat James Talarico in a state that Trump won comfortably in 2024 (by 14 points). If Paxton wins, it will expose the extent to which voters are betting on Trump's chosen horse. If he loses, the rejection of the candidate may outweigh the rejection of the president. Given an evident evolution of the voting profile due to the increase of the Latino community, the Democrats should not therefore attribute a conversion of the Hispanic vote; one of his past failures has been to confuse ethnic identity with political loyalty.
Georgia, where Jon Ossoff is trying to keep his seat in territory conquered by Trump, and Ohio, where Sherrod Brown is trying to recover the industrial vote, offer other clues for a Democratic Party forced to think about 2028.
A reversal in the House is expected to multiply investigations into the Administration. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth is among the clear targets for his handling of the Iran war. But agreeing to an impeachment is not equivalent to dismissal, since it requires two-thirds of the Senate. Washington could face two years of budget feints, legislative paralysis and increasing recourse to the president's executive powers. Added to the parliamentary confrontation is the early judicialization of the elections, which could prolong the insecurity regarding the balance of forces in the constitution of the new Congress on January 3. The Justice Department has already gone to court in Alaska to preemptively challenge an eventual Democratic victory. The fear of the proliferation of controversies until the inauguration of the period increases and the legal obstacles to prevent the inauguration of duly elected candidates are considerable.
In any case, the Republican defeat would not return predictability to foreign policy. Trump will continue to be a weather vane, sensitive to the latest wind that blows. In Iran it oscillates between maintaining pressure until the regime is defeated or seeking a hasty exit from an increasingly costly war. While he declares that he has not yet decided, his response when asked by journalists regarding new bombings - "anything is possible" - is eloquently cryptic and warns his allies of possible attacks after the elections. For Europe, the blind cronyism towards Putin, the relaxation of sanctions against Russia and the coercion on Ukraine appear particularly disturbing. An adverse Congress could erect obstacles in front of the Administration and promote other sanctions, but it would hardly eliminate the uncertainty emanating from the White House.
All in all, reducing Trump to his excesses and his ties to economic power would be a mistake. His success was not born of an elaborate ideology. He knew how to interpret the grievances and expectations of a working class that felt helpless, from the rust belt to Appalachia. His brutal language and disregard for convention helped present him as authentic to a political elite associated with verbiage and imposture. To that identification he added a promise of forcefulness: to act, remove obstacles and manage to reverse situations.
This determination helps to understand the approach of leading technological entrepreneurs. There has been blushing adulation, interests and opportunism. But Trump understood, like them, that the contest with China over artificial intelligence is a battle for global primacy. And it has favored the expansion of US capabilities through bold commitments in energy, infrastructure, semiconductors, administrative simplification and the aggressive instrumentalization (weaponization) of trade measures until now considered fundamentally neutral.
Biden had embarked on that path with the Inflation Reduction Act and the CHIPS Act, backbone industrial projects still conceived within the framework of an international system based on rules and alliances. Trump has kicked the board. Without justifying its methods, it must be recognized that it has introduced into technological rivalry a logic close to war mobilization. Bridging the differences between the characters, he is reminiscent of Franklin D. Roosevelt who called - even before Pearl Harbor - to the big industrialists to convert American productive capacity into the crucial arsenal of the Second World War.
Elon Musk embodies the contradictions of this collusion. Its political following should not hide its industrial size: in 2025, SpaceX carried out more orbital launches than all other operators on the planet combined. The concentration of private power over strategic capabilities raises alarm, but Europe would be wrong to underestimate such entrepreneurial energy.
In the end, whatever happens in this election, everyone will be looking to 2028. Competition with China, industrial reconstruction, and the technological push will likely outlast Trump. His successor would continue that effort without sacrificing rules, alliances or constitutional checks and balances. Democrats must also learn that it is not enough to benefit from the rejection of the president; They need to reconnect with the working class and expand their electorate. Ossoff offers interesting traits: moderate, good communicator and "likable" - the American likable is an asset different from ideological moderation.
When the polls close, the discussion about winners and losers will begin. But the decisive question will not just be how much power Trump retains, but how much of the transformation he embodies has taken hold in the United States. For Europe, too aware of its mood swings and too unprepared for the ongoing strategic struggle, that is the truly important question.
