How high the Democratic wave?

With the U.S. midterm elections set for November 3, now is a good time to level-set for what socialists should expect.

Multiple indicators point to a Democratic victory in the midterm elections. Trump is an historically unpopular president. Republicans control all parts of the national government, so they are the target for the characteristic midterm vote against the incumbent government. Prices of gasoline and diesel are at their highest point in years, due to Trump’s war in Iran. Consumer confidence is at a73-year low, and 74 percent of Americans tell pollsters that the country is moving in the wrong direction.

So, it’s no surprise that Democrats are favored to win the US House. In fact, Republicans have given up trying to forestall that. Data-driven forecasters like G. Elliott Morris and Nate Silver place the probability of a Democratic House higher than 90 percent, and the probability of the Democrats winning the U.S. Senate at 70 percent or higher.

The well-regarded New York Times poll, published October 21, estimated that, were the election held then, Democrats would receive 52 percent, compared to 41 percent for the Republicans. If that holds for the election, it would be the biggest Democrat popular vote margin in a midterm election since the Watergate scandal brought down the Republicans in 1974.

That expected result wouldn’t represent an endorsement for the Democratic Party, which remains as unpopular as the Republicans. But U.S. midterm elections are classically “throw the bums out” elections. And the Republicans are the bums this year.

Trump and his toadies declare the polls “fake” and promise Republican victory. But their behavior—in which Trump, Vance and other administration figures are campaigning almost exclusively in “red” conservative areas—says they know they are in deep trouble. At the time of writing, polls showed that a Senate race in Kansas, where a Democrat hasn’t won a senate seat since 1932, to be a tossup. And Democrat James Talarico is slightly favored to win a Senate seat in Texas, where a Democrat hasn’t won statewide since the 1990s.

The last-minute campaign blitz and the truly obscene amount of money billionaires are spending to shore up Republican candidates may limit GOP losses. It seems clear, however, that the Democrats are headed to victory in November. The real question will be how high will the Democratic “wave” crest?

What will Trump do?

All the above assumes that November 3 will unfold as a “normal” midterm election. But we know that Trump and his minions will not permit that. Imagination is all that limits what Trump and the GOP would like to do to manipulate the election, or even to prevent Democratic majorities from taking over the Congress. Given Trump’s attempts to overthrow the 2020 presidential election, nothing is “off the table.”

Trump, his captive Supreme Court, and Republicans at all levels of government have conducted a years-long campaign to neuter the impact of elections that might go against them. This includes the Supreme Court’s evisceration of the Voting Rights Act, Republican-led mid-decade gerrymandering to lock in GOP majorities, and Trump’s so-far failed attempt to use the U.S. Postal Service to make mail-in voting more difficult.

Trump and his Justice Department have continued to act on the “big lie” that non-US citizens are voting illegally. The DOJ has tried to force U.S. states, which are constitutionally assigned the role of running U.S. elections, to hand over their voting rolls. With voting data in hand, the Trump government says it can purge non-citizens from the rolls. So far, no state has complied and the courts have ruled against Trump and the DOJ.

However, the DOJ has persisted. In late October, it indicted 28 individuals in California it claims voted illegally. Moreover, it sent lists of supposed non-citizen voters to each California county, threatening each with legal action if they didn’t set those voters’ ballots aside. The Trump DOJ has even filed a pre-emptive suit against Alaska—before a single vote is tallied—because it allowed two Republican candidates with same name to appear on the ballot.

Trump has also stepped-up harassment of Democratic politicians, like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) and Virginia state senator Louise Lucas, accusing them of crimes.

These tactics are meant to intimidate opponents of Trump, while threatening legal sanctions against thousands of election officials and government workers who are charged with making U.S. elections work. It’s also worth watching what sort of chicanery—from closing polling stations to dropping thousands from the voting rolls— Republican-controlled states will deploy to limit the vote.

There are other more far-fetched tactics Trump and his minions contemplate. They might declare that foreign governments are intervening in the election, requiring them to seize voting machines. They might deploy ICE thugs or the military to polling places. MAGA hardliners are even calling on Trump to implement “martial law.”

Even though these moves are far-fetched, the Capitol riot on January 6, 2020 should tell us that they are not beyond a desperate Trump or his lackeys like Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. Still, to work, they depend on a disciplined and willing chain of command that doesn’t appear to exist currently. Remember, this is the same crew whose failure to make the most basic wartime preparation allowed Iran to knock out most U.S. military bases in the Middle East.

Whether all of this will work to preserve Trump’s and the Republicans’ hold on the state is unknown, especially if the Democratic victory is as overwhelming as many expect. The Democratic Party is mobilizing hundreds of lawyers and thousands of poll watchers to counter them. But if some of these dirty tricks succeed while Trump and the GOP are overwhelmingly unpopular, socialists should be prepared for mobilizations of “civil society” groups. The Democrats may want to fight it out in the courts, but the balance of social forces will be more important. And this is where Trump’s historic unpopularity has a material impact on events.

Follow the money

Already the 2026 midterm election is on track to be the most expensive of all time, with billions being spent on both sides. Open Secrets, the non-partisan monitor of campaign spending, noted that “outside groups,” i.e., groups not officially connected to candidates, have already spent more than $2 billion by early October. These levels of spending would have been considered excessive for a presidential race only about a decade ago.

But as the campaign spending level—most of it supporting 24/7 television and online advertising—spirals upward, the leverage that a small number of billionaires gain over the political system increases as well. By some estimates, “trillionaire” Elon Musk alone may spend as much as half a billion dollars to support Republicans. This is more than Trump’s candidate committee spent in 2024. But for Musk and his ilk, this is pocket change.

And even accepting that these are truly obscene amounts of money that amount to legalized bribery of politicians whose actions set the legal framework for capitalist profit-making, they are a small price to pay for the capitalist class and its richest members. We are amid an unprecedented investment boom (estimated at $10 trillion between 2025 and 2032) to remake the U.S. economy under the aegis of artificial intelligence “hyperscalers”. A few billion to shape the legislative and regulatory environment is a trivial expense in comparison.

While the liberal anti-Trump opposition has focused on the spending of right-wing billionaires like Musk or the Uihleins of Illinois, we can’t ignore that the candidates raking in the most money in this midterm cycle are almost exclusively Democrats! As Open Secrets’ analysis of early October reports to the Federal Election Commission pointed out, “Democrats dominate the top fundraising rankings in both [the U.S. House and Senate]. They hold the top nine spots among Senate candidates and nine of the top 11 among House candidates.”

The leading U.S. Senate candidates, Texas challenger Talarico and incumbent Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff, hold huge advantages over their Republican opponents. And the leading House fundraiser, with the highest amount of “cash on hand” is none other than “democratic socialist” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez! Many Democrats may say that they (mostly) reject corporate political action committee (PAC) money and depend on “individual contributions” of ordinary people. But it’s clear from FEC data that most individual donors to Democrats are well-off people associated with the tech, higher education, and health sectors.

And if you look at someone like Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who is set to become Speaker of the House, and third-in-line to the presidency, you find that he doesn’t turn down corporate PAC money—85 percent of which comes from business interests. Moreover, corporations launder their contributions through “super PACs” providing another source of support for candidates.

Democrats may be characterologically spineless and feckless, ineffective in delivering for their liberal base when they gain official state power. But the main reason for this goes beyond character and is more explained by Upton Sinclair’s admittedly gendered quip that “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it!”

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the organization charged with recruiting and funding Democratic congressional candidates, draws more than 60 percent of its war chest from corporate PACs and rich individuals who can afford $50,000 contributions, writes socialist Kim Moody. Given that, is it any surprise why the vast majority of congressional Democrats are pro-corporate “centrists?”

Two of the most active sectors in political giving—cryptocurrency and AI/tech— may have leaned to Trump and GOP since Trump took the White House. But they are still “bipartisan” in their approach to winning support in the legislative branch and among state-level politicians. In fact, one leading AI Super PAC runs two divisions: one that donates to Republicans and one that donates to Democrats.

The northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, are becoming as reliable a Democratic Party stronghold as New York or the San Francisco Bay Area. But the area also represents the largest concentration of AI data centers in the U.S., and the region’s Democratic congressmembers are recipients of hundreds of thousands in AI industry donations.

Despite huge bipartisan popular opposition to Big Tech and data center exploitation of land, tax breaks, power and water around the country, don’t be surprised if a Democratic congress and the Republican White House figure out a way to pass “reforms” on AI and crypto that will leave ordinary people wondering why they voted for “change” in 2026.

Will it stop the slide to authoritarianism?

In the event of a Democratic sweep, people who despise Trump and MAGA will alternate between celebrating and feeling relieved. But, just as in 2020, they shouldn’t assume that the threat of U.S. authoritarianism is vanquished. This will be so for both specific, “conjunctural,” reasons, and for more general aspects related to our political era.

The first conjunctural reason is the most obvious. Trump will still have the White House and the administrative machinery of the federal government at his disposal even if the Democrats take the Congress. Trump is likely to increase his lawless and authoritarian behavior while daring the Democrats and the courts to stop him. Even moderate legislation to limit Trump’s tariffs or to restore cuts to federal health care programs will face Trump vetoes.

The second conjunctural reason to keep up the fight is the fact that the Democrats may be the other option to the GOP on most ballots, but they are not an opposition party. The Democratic Party is a corporate-backed entity dedicated to supporting the success of American capitalism and U.S. empire.

Democrats are campaigning on vague promises to bring “affordability” to ordinary Americans and “accountability” to the criminals in the Trump administration. If they do take one or both houses of the U.S. Congress, they will become locked in a cage match with an administration that will not recognize Democrats’ authority.

On the “accountability” front, Democrats are already lowering expectations, as Jeffries and even leading progressives are saying they want to avoid a “performative” impeachment of Trump. On affordability, they are promising legislation to reverse some Trump policies (back to the Biden status quo), but they are also pursuing the fool’s errand of winning Republican support for them—in a Congress where Republican minorities will be hard-core MAGA zealots. This is a recipe for failure in its own right.

Third, a Democratic majority in Congress won’t change the fact that a small handful of billionaires exercise more power over policy and ordinary peoples’ lives than any “democracy” should tolerate. As author Hamilton Nolan told New Republic journalist Perry Bacon, “And so when money buys influence, and you have these obscene, enormous, nation-level fortunes in private hands, it just at a certain point crowds out the ability of everybody else to influence politics in a way that you have any kind of balance of power.”

The American oligarchy may be in Trump’s circle now, but it can easily move its money and power to influence Democrats as well. Especially when they have willing Democrats like Jeffries or California Gov. Gavin Newsom to attend to them. Newsom, a Democratic presidential hopeful for 2028, is opposing a referendum for a one-time tax on billionaire wealth to fund state health care programs. That’s how the “affordability agenda” crashes on the shoals of American oligarchy—or is watered so much that no one even notices it.

The question of oligarchy leads into the general character of the “era” of politics that Trump has come to define in the U.S. A generation of neoliberal hollowing out of good jobs and government services in the service of oligarchy has left the share of wealth going to labor at its lowest level since the 1940s.

This reality has undermined the legitimacy of the “center-left” and “center-right” parties that had dominated the politics of liberal democracies since the Second World War. The far right has surged into political spaces that the old parties have vacated, while labor and social movements have been weakened.

The come-from-behind victory of Lula in Brazil’s presidential election and the landslide against MAGA-friendly Vŭkic in Serbia shows that victory for the far-right isn’t inevitable. But if fighting authoritarianism is only based on electoralism and left to mainstream political parties, we are only one election away from the authoritarian consolidation that Trump has, so far, not been able to accomplish.

So those who will welcome the GOP’s defeat next month shouldn’t look to maneuvering in Washington. They should draw inspiration from mass movements—like those in India, France, the Spanish state, and Serbia, to name a few—for a strategy to put the right on the defensive.