Midterms 2026, the recap’: the Democrats believe in victory, AI invites itself into the campaign

• Will the “blue wave” happen?

This week in the United States, the left began to hope for a complete victory in the midterm elections. Until now, the Democrats were preparing to regain the majority in the House of Representatives but were much more reserved about the Senate. Now this is also within reach. Decision Desk HQ changed its projections for the first time, giving Democrats a 51% chance of winning the upper house.

Among recent polls, it was that of the New York Times-Siena University, one of the most respected in the country, which attracted attention this week. It confirms many signals of a potential “blue wave” in November. First, the overall advantage of Democrats over Republicans among likely voters is estimated at nearly nine points. In 2018, the latest “blue wave”, such a gap resulted in the taking of around forty seats in the House of Representatives.

Then, Donald Trump’s popularity rating stagnates around 38% positive opinions, the lowest since the start of the war in Iran. A war which, associated with the American president’s customs tariffs, prolongs inflation that the Americans can no longer tolerate. However, Donald Trump warned that we should not expect to see prices fall before the Midterms. This week’s Fed rate increase aggravates the situation as access to credit becomes even more difficult.

The debateMid-term elections: towards a sanction vote against Donald Trump?

Now, the New York Times poll tells us, voters have more confidence in Democrats on the issue of the economy and the cost of living. Even more interesting, right-wing voters are demobilized. When 61% of Democrats say they are almost certain to vote, only 56% of Republicans say the same thing.

Worse, only 60% of Republicans strongly approve of Trump’s policies, while 92% of Democrats strongly disapprove. Clearly, Republicans have less energy at the same time as Democrats are furious. It is perhaps this last element that we will have to remember because, during the Midterms, elections where participation is less important than in the presidential election, the energy of the base is essential to win.

In fact, two years after his election, the heterogeneous coalition that Donald Trump had brought together is disintegrating. Not only is the base less motivated, but the young people and Latinos who tried the Trump adventure in 2024 have deserted. This is particularly the case in Texas where the young James Talarico, of whom France 24 spoke to you here last week, could take a senatorial seat from the Republicans.

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The discontent is such that certain red districts become areas to defend. This week, Vice President JD Vance campaigned for a candidate from Kansas, a state that has not elected a Democrat to Congress since 1932. In Georgia, one of the contested Senate states, Republicans are wondering whether they should throw in the towel and focus on other electoral battles, as Democrat Jon Ossoff’s lead seems difficult to catch up on.

In close duels, examples of candidates distancing themselves from Donald Trump are multiplying. Some voted this week with the Democrats to call for an end to the war in Iran. As for the American president’s promise to pay $5,000 to each citizen in the event of a Republican victory, it is little relayed on the ground. Donald Trump, who asked his voters to act as if he were on the ballot, thus sees his bet defied by his own camp.

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Caution remains essential. If the environment and the polls are favorable to the Democrats, the terrain and financial reserves remain to the advantage of the right. Electoral redistribution has mathematically reduced – certainly less than hoped for by the Republicans – the number of constituencies winnable by the left. Even in the event of victory, we should not expect a Democratic tidal wave in the House like in 2018. In the Senate, it will be even more difficult. Democrats must take four seats from the right in hotly contested states to win a majority, while retaining two high-risk seats, Michigan and New Hampshire.

However, the super PACs (political action committees which finance electoral campaigns) linked to Donald Trump and his billionaire supporters have only just opened the cash taps: they have spent nearly 140 million dollars on advertising since September 7 (Labor Day, a public holiday in the United States which marks the real start of the campaign). “We are betting that voters were not interested (in the Midterms, Editor’s note) before Labor Day – and we are starting now,” Representative Richard Hudson, in charge of the Republican campaign in the House of Representatives, explained to the New York Times. “We have a money advantage that I’ve never seen in my life.”

• AI in the campaign: haro on data centers

From Texas to New York, via Arizona, Georgia and even Ohio, a new theme has emerged in the Midterms campaign: artificial intelligence (AI). If this week the national debate has revolved around the possibility that AI will end up killing humans, it is the practical consequences of this new industry that are being discussed at the state level: data centers, their location, their consumption of water and electricity and their impact on the communities around them.

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The particularity of data centers? Voters of all sides are wary of it, far from the partisan debates that have divided Americans for around fifteen years. For Democrats, this is a political opportunity. In Georgia, for example, Senator Jon Ossof, potential presidential candidate in 2028, accused Donald Trump and his family of being “compromised” by a “financial interest in this industry”.

Also in Georgia, gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms is calling for a pause in the construction of new data centers. She accuses her Republican rival Rick Jackson of also being compromised by his investments in this sector. The latter, conversely, defends the economic benefits for this state.

A position aligned with that of Donald Trump. The American president is 100% for AI, worried about Chinese competition and a potential stock market crisis in the event of a slowdown in the sector. Enough to put certain Republican candidates in an uncomfortable position on the ground. So much so that some are distancing themselves from the White House. In Michigan, Senate candidate Mike Rogers, struggling in the polls, for example claimed to have changed his mind on AI after the warning from the boss of Anthropic. He is now convinced that it is necessary to “slow down its development”.

• Focus on a hotly contested state: in Ohio, the battle for blue-collar workers

In Ohio, all eyes are on Sherrod Brown: will the Democratic Senate candidate succeed in regaining his seat? His victory against Republican John Husted could be decisive at the national level since Ohio is one of the four seats to be won from the Republicans to regain the majority.

Donald Trump won this state with an 11-point lead over Kamala Harris in 2024. Sherrod Brown lost his seat on this occasion, victim of the erosion of the vote of blue-collar workers who turned to the opposing party – a phenomenon then observed almost everywhere in the Midwest.

This year, the 73-year-old politician, well known to Ohio unions since the 1970s, enjoys a three-point lead in recent polls, partly linked to the return of workers disappointed with Trump’s second term. They had voted for the billionaire to get rid of the inflation of the Biden years. Instead, they are still bludgeoned by rising prices and don’t understand why the president persists in his war in Iran and his tariff policies. “I expected a lot of economic improvement like in 2017, but things are getting more and more expensive. The price of gasoline is crazy,” a worker from the town of Mansfield recently complained to the Washington Post. Seeing Sherrod Brown on a picket line this winter convinced him: he will have his vote this year.

Sherrod Brown, too, is campaigning on the impact of AI in his state. His campaign aired a very aggressive television spot, accusing his rival John Husted of being “the face of data centers in Ohio.” But the subject of data centers is a double-edged sword, with some local unions praising the promise of job creation linked to the construction of these infrastructures.

The battle between Sherrod Brown and John Husted is closely scrutinized because it could serve as a locomotive for the others. However, Ohio is also electing its governor this year, a position that the Democrats have lost since 2006. And Democrat Amy Acton sees the polls smiling more and more at her in the face of a candidate more Trumpist than Trump, Vivek Ramaswamy.

No wonder, then, that Sherrod Brown becomes a target. Republicans have spent $14 million on ads in recent days to help John Husted. The race has already attracted $298 million in total advertising investment and could become the most expensive of the 2026 Midterms.

• In the news: the Supreme Court thwarts Donald Trump’s plans

Donald Trump has reason to resent the Supreme Court. The conservative-majority justices rejected two measures that would have allowed Republicans to exert greater control over the midterm elections. Last week, they blocked Missouri Republicans from using a new electoral map, redrawn to gain an additional seat in the House of Representatives.

And this week, the Supreme Court blocked the application of new rules issued by La Poste to deliver postal votes. These rules responded to a decree from the president who sought to more strictly regulate this vote. Donald Trump, furious, accused the institution of making cheating “much easier” for Democrats.

Among Hispanics who voted for Donald Trump, some are remorseful. The pill of its migration policy, in particular, does not pass. Thursday, something extremely rare, it was a Republican elected official who made it known loud and clear. Maria Elvira Salazar is the representative of the 27th district of Florida, a district of Miami where the large Cuban diaspora turned to Donald Trump during the presidential election. In a direct campaign spot, in front of the White House, she addresses the president directly, her finger pointed at the camera.

“Some of your migration policies have gone too far,” denounces this former journalist, herself of Cuban origin. “In July, 50% of the 50,000 people arrested had no criminal past. Pay attention to what your advisors tell you about immigration policy. The same Hispanics who helped you return to the White House in 2024 now feel betrayed,” she asserts, in English and Spanish.

Polls put her neck and neck with her Democratic rival, even though she was re-elected with 60% of the vote two years ago. Maria Elvira Salazar therefore takes the risk of alienating the White House to save her fourth term in Congress.