2026 US Midterm Elections: It’s Not Just Affordability, Stupid!

In this commentary for the European Center for Populism Studies (ECPS), Professor Lester Spence of Johns Hopkins University challenges interpretations of the 2026 US midterm elections that attribute the rejection of Trumpism primarily to economic affordability. While acknowledging the significance of rising living costs, Professor Spence argues that racial justice, civil rights, immigration enforcement, and democratic accountability were equally crucial in shaping electoral mobilization. Drawing on developments in Mississippi, Texas, Florida, and Israel, he highlights the political significance of Black and Latino voter participation and broader progressive organizing. He contends that the Democratic Party’s future success depends not merely on addressing economic grievances but on strengthening the political power of constituencies mobilized against authoritarianism, racial exclusion, and democratic erosion.

By Lester Spence*

In November 2024, Donald Trump was elected president for a second time, with a margin so small that if more voters had turned out to vote in Detroit, MI, Philadelphia, PA, and Milwaukee, WI, we would be talking about the second half of Kamala Harris’ first term. The first two years of his term saw him follow the Project 2025 plan established by the conservative Heritage Foundation, in combination with the interests of Elon Musk and other tech billionaires. 

The result? 

He gutted USAID (estimates suggest approximately 14 million lives could be lost if the cuts continue through 2030), slashed food assistance for approximately 4 million people, placed over 70,000 people in concentration camps, separated at least 145,000 children from their parents, placed the military in our nation’s cities (including the capital), and engaged in staggering levels of corruption. Much of this has been aided and abetted by his Supreme Court through its decisions granting presidents immunity, eviscerating the Voting Rights Act, and enabling ICE agents to use racial profiling in immigration raids, among others. Finally, he deposed two heads of state in Venezuela and Iran and entered into a war with Iran that shows no signs of ending. 

Tuesday, November 3, 2026, was the first time voters had the opportunity to respond to the first two years of Trump’s second term. And respond they did. With the highest turnout in modern election history—the last time turnout was higher, neither African Americans (in the South) nor women could vote—voters decisively rejected Trumpism. In doing so, they gave the Democratic Party majority control of both the House and Senate, forcing Trump to spend the last two years of his presidency facing a bicameral Democratic majority for the first time.

Further, they elected the first Muslim American (Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan), the first Indigenous woman (Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota), and the first openly gay man (Chris Pappas in Minnesota). A record number of Black governors were elected, including the nation’s first Black female governor, Keisha Lance Bottoms, in Georgia. And 107 of the 165 candidates endorsed by the Democratic Socialists of America, arguably the most important left political force in the country, won office. The newly elected mayors of Los Angeles and Washington, DC, are DSA members.

I’m going to use four elections, three domestic, and one international, to give a better sense of the scope. Mississippi is the poster-child for the American Deep South. It was the first state to institutionalize Jim Crow—in 1890 its state constitutional convention was held for the express purpose of eliminating African Americans from politics. Scott Colom defeated Cindy Hyde-Smith becoming the state’s first democratic senator since 1982, and its first black Senator since 1881. 

Texas elected its first Latina governor as well as its first Democratic Senator in almost four decades, and while the Republican Party still controls the Senate, the Democrats will have more power in the state than they’ve had since the 1990s. 

In Florida, Angie Nixon narrowly lost her campaign against Ashley Moody, but received almost 4 million votes as a Democratic Socialist, and as important with little to no support from the Democratic Party.  

Finally, I point to the elections in Israel. In response to the genocide in Gaza, combined with Netanyahu’s corruption, over 65.000 Israel migrants returned to Israel to vote, generating the highest turnout there in ages. Israel is in many ways as politically split as the United States. While Netanyahu’s political forces did not experience the type of losses Trumpism did. With this said, however, more Palestinian voters participated than ever before, allotting Palestinian parties more votes than they’ve ever possessed. Their votes will make the difference between a coalition with the capacity to stave off Netanyahu and expressly a nation willing to move against its ethnic-nationalist tendency, and a nation that accedes to it. 

I bring this case up because while Americans tend to view its elections solely in domestic terms, the decision Israel makes are undoubtedly shaped if not determined by the US election—it is unlikely Israel parties would even consider working with Palestinian parties if the US election turned out different.  

The key word analysts and some American politicians have turned to in explaining this election is affordability. Americans rejected Trumpism because the price of gas skyrocketed and because bread became too expensive. Identifying the problem in this way centers the victory on voters who were primarily (if not solely) interested in affordability defined in this manner and then tends to naturally generate solutions that will effectively solve the problem defined in this manner.

Now affordability has become an issue over the past few years. US gas prices are higher than they were when Trump was elected in 2024. Bread prices are higher than they were when Trump was elected in 2024. These price spikes are real as are voter concerns about them.

But affordability, defined narrowly in this manner, does not explain Mississippi. It does not explain Texas. It does not explain Florida. What does? Trump’s attacks on civil rights and the apparatus used to sustain them, and, relatedly, Trump’s vicious anti-immigration policies. These attacks arguably led to turnout so high among Black voters that the Republicans actually lost elections in many of the redistricted seats they thought they would claim without a problem once the Supreme Court neutered the Voting Rights Act.

Relatedly Trump’s concentration camps combined with his deployment of masked ICE agents both turned a significant percentage of Latino votes against him, it also increased their turnout. 

With this mandate, the Democratic Party and progressives in general are thinking about next steps, with some believing that investigations and efforts to legislatively respond to Trump’s actions, as well as those of his Supreme Court, should be a significant component of the Democratic Party’s agenda.

I have no crystal ball here, but I suggest that, going forward, it makes more sense to wield the power the Democratic Party has to enhance the political power of the two populations most willing and interested in persistently turning out in favor of progressive priorities, and it isn’t clear that they can do so effectively by solely thinking about “affordability.” 

(*) Lester Spence is a Professor of Political Science and Africana Studies at Johns Hopkins University. He specializes in the study of black, racial, and urban politics in the wake of the neoliberal turn. An award winning scholar (in 2013, he received the W.E.B. DuBois Distinguished Book Award for his book, Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics) and teacher (in 2009, he received an Excellence in Teaching Award), he can regularly be heard on National Public Radio and the Marc Steiner Show.