ANALYSIS: November 2026, the verdict — when the midterms will decide Trump’s fate

January 6, 2026: A Date Laden with Symbolism

Was it deliberate to choose January 6, 2026—the fifth anniversary of the Capitol riot—to hold a Republican seminar and deliver these remarks? Trump told his allies at the Republican retreat in Washington: “You have to win the midterms because if we fail, they will surely find a reason to impeach me.” ” The wording is telling. He doesn’t say “if we make mistakes”—he says “they will find a reason.” This is the mindset of a man perpetually under siege, convinced from the outset that any opposition is illegitimate.

According to Reuters, Trump also predicted in the same speech that Republicans would achieve an “epic victory in the midterms.” The internal contradiction is characteristic: on the one hand, he predicts disaster to rally his troops; on the other, he promises triumph to keep morale high. This is pure Trump—fear and hubris as simultaneous fuels. The U.S. president himself has turned November 2026 into a referendum on his continued unimpeded tenure.

Speaker Johnson confirms: the threat is real

Trump isn’t the only Republican to have articulated this scenario. Speaker Mike Johnson stated in October 2025, during an interview on Fox News with Laura Ingraham: “We’re going to win the midterms. Absolutely.” ” But in the same breath, he acknowledged that if the Democrats retake the House, they might attempt to impeach Trump again. This bipartisan recognition—on both the Republican and Democratic sides—of the central importance of November 2026 is unprecedented in recent history.

Democratic voices have also grown louder. Representative April McClain Delaney of Maryland called on her caucus to “immediately consider impeachment proceedings” in response to the military operation in Venezuela. According to the Washington Post, Democrats have identified numerous presidential actions they consider legal grounds for impeachment, but the party leadership is holding its breath until after the elections to avoid providing Republicans with a rallying cry.

This Democratic restraint fascinates me as much as it puzzles me. Jeffries is making a cold, calculated move: not waving the red flag of impeachment before the election so as not to galvanize the Republican base. It’s strategy, not cowardice. But it requires a level of collective discipline that Democrats have not always been able to maintain.

A Coup d’État in Disguise

The term “rolling coup”—a gradual, progressive coup—was popularized in two seminal articles published in June 2026. The first, written by Jonathan Alter in the Washington Monthly on June 19, 2026, describes “a slow-motion coup attempt” orchestrated by Trump and his advisor Stephen Miller in the run-up to the midterms. The central idea: Trump cannot cancel the elections, but he can use “the immense powers of his office” to invalidate Democratic victories, state by state, district by district.

The second article, published on June 22, 2026, in The Nation and authored by former lawmakers Richard Gephardt (former Democratic majority leader) and Timothy Wirth (senator from Colorado), is even more alarmist. They write: “We believe that in the United States today, we are in the midst of a rolling coup.” ” They define this “rolling coup” not as a single-day seizure of power, but as “the methodical construction of an apparatus designed to identify, arrest, prosecute, and, if necessary, forcibly suppress Americans whose only crime is to oppose this administration.”

NPSM-7 and the PEADs: The Legal Architecture of Repression

This is not ordinary political rhetoric. The authors draw on actual documents. NPSM-7—a National Security Presidential Memorandum signed on September 25, 2025, and titled “Combating Domestic Terrorism and Organized Political Violence”—allows any American deemed “anti-American,” “anti-capitalist,” “anti-Christian,” or “hostile to traditional American views on family, religion, and morality.” The definition is deliberately vague—broad enough to encompass any Democratic activist or campaign organizer.

PEADs—Presidential Emergency Action Documents, classified emergency action documents—grant the president extraordinary powers in the event of a national emergency: to detain suspects, restrict movement, seize property, and take control of communication systems. According to The Nation, these powers are not authorized by law and were drafted without congressional oversight. Using them in the context of a post-midterm election dispute would constitute a major constitutional breach.

As I read these documents, I am reminded that the history of lost democracies always follows the same pattern: emergency laws presented as security necessities, emergency powers that are never revoked, and an opposition that is gradually criminalized. This is not inevitable—but it is not fiction either.

The SAVE Act and the War on Absentee Voting

To stem the Democratic tide, Republicans have launched a multifaceted strategy to restrict voting. The Washington Monthly describes Trump’s repeated attempts to push through the SAVE Act, a bill that would ban mail-in voting and require proof of citizenship to register to vote. In March 2026, Trump signed an executive order directing the DHS and the SSA to compile lists of citizens on a state-by-state basis and ordering the DOJ to investigate groups distributing ballots to ineligible voters.

In April 2026, Trump signed an executive order banning mail-in voting. Federal courts blocked the measure—23 states filed lawsuits, and three courts ruled against the administration—but the damage in terms of electoral confusion and voter discouragement is real. According to available data, 30% of American voters cast their ballots by mail. Restrictions on this voting method disproportionately affect Democratic voters, seniors, minorities, and rural voters who are geographically dispersed.

Intimidation as a Pre-Election Tactic

According to The Nation, Trump is preparing to deploy ICE agents and federal law enforcement officers to polling places in the states he lost in 2024. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth testified before Congress that he could not rule out sending troops to polling places—despite legal warnings that this would clearly be illegal. FBI Director Kash Patel oversaw a 300% increase in domestic terrorism investigations, and thousands of U.S. citizens and nongovernmental organizations are on a secret watchlist linked to the Joint Mission Center.

In June 2026, the FBI raided the offices of the Ohio Organizing Collaborative in Cleveland—a progressive group funded in part by George Soros. Agents searched the homes of individuals associated with the group. A board member denounced “tactics of intimidation and harassment.” After the June primaries in California, Trump, Johnson, and federal prosecutors in California used the delayed counting of ballots—a standard legal practice—as alleged evidence of election fraud and launched investigations that Washington Monthly describes as “bogus.”

This pre-election intimidation strategy deeply revolts me. Sending federal agents to raid the homes of civic activists six months before the election is not legal vigilance—it is institutional terrorism. The West cannot afford to stand by and watch its own democratic disintegration.

Jeffries and the Official Line: The Cost of Living Comes First

Faced with this Republican offensive, Hakeem Jeffries has adopted a clear and disciplined line. His official priority, repeated on every network, is economic: reducing the cost of living and restoring the American Dream, which “many currently consider out of reach.” It’s a strategy aimed at moderate voters and the middle class who swung toward Trump in 2024. The idea is that impeachment is a tool that mobilizes the Democratic base but may alienate independents—the decisive voting bloc in swing districts.

However, on June 14, 2026, on NBC’s Meet the Press, Jeffries acknowledged that Democrats have “not ruled out” impeachment. This ambivalent wording is calculated: it reassures the progressive base without closing the strategic door, but it avoids making impeachment the campaign’s rallying cry. According to ABC News, “a growing number of Democrats on the campaign trail and on Capitol Hill say Trump has committed impeachable offenses.” The pressure is mounting, but the leadership is keeping a lid on it.

Pressure from the base: the voices forcing the party’s hand

The Democratic base, however, is less patient. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez stated that Trump had launched “a significant war” against American interests. In January 2026—following the military operation in Venezuela—progressive groups issued a joint statement demanding Trump’s immediate impeachment for what they called an “illegal and unconstitutional” attack. These voices are not marginal: they represent the most mobilized and active segment of the Democratic electorate.

In January 2026, The Boston Globe published an editorial asserting that impeachment should “be part of the Democrats’ strategy for the midterms”—not as an end in itself, but as a consistent message about defending institutions. The editorial’s logic: if Trump himself says he’ll be impeached if he loses, the Democrats should take him at his word and make it an explicit campaign promise, not a taboo.

I understand Jeffries. Strategic discipline in a campaign is a cardinal virtue. But I also understand the grassroots perspective: when a president signs emergency executive orders to criminalize the opposition, waiting for “the right moment” to react can mean arriving too late.

The Risk of Republican Mobilization

Republicans are not sitting idly by in the face of this threat. According to the February 23, 2026, edition of the Washington Times, they are “actively amplifying” the Democrats’ rhetoric on impeachment to galvanize their own base. The logic is classic: every time the Democrats mention impeachment, the Republicans rally their donors and voters around a Trump portrayed as the victim of a political witch hunt. This is the same mechanism that worked during the first impeachment in 2019 and the second in 2021—Trump emerged politically strengthened in the short term.

The strategic question is therefore a daunting one: Does talking about impeachment before the elections help Democrats mobilize their base, or does it mobilize the Republican base even more? The polls are mixed. One thing is certain: the structure of the midterm election—where the most mobilized base turns out to vote—favors those who have the most to lose. And within the Democratic camp, the feeling that Trump is an existential threat to American democracy has never been stronger.

Impeachment as an Institutional Statement

Beyond electoral calculations, there is a matter of constitutional principle. If the Democrats retake the House in November 2026 and do not initiate impeachment proceedings despite the numerous documented cases of abuse of power—Operation Venezuela, the use of NPSM-7, voting restrictions, political raids—they will send a devastating message: that constitutional safeguards no longer apply to the sitting president. This precedent would be more dangerous in the long term than any short-term electoral calculation.

Constitutional scholar Michael Luttig, a former Republican-appointed federal judge, has joined the ranks of those who, according to Washington Monthly, stand ready to speak with one voice if the “rolling coup” moves into the operational phase. The idea of an Electoral Integrity Committee comprising former presidents, former vice presidents, and former Supreme Court justices is being floated as a last resort in the face of an attempt to challenge post-election results.

Impeachment is not merely a political weapon. It is a statement of principle regarding what a democracy is willing to tolerate from its executive branch. Democracies that fail to use their constitutional tools when necessary eventually lose them.

Election Night: The Decisive First Hours

In a scenario that Jonathan Alter describes as “fictional but plausible,” Washington Monthly projects what the night of November 3, 2026, might look like. At 1:00 a.m., the Democrats are projected to hold a majority of at least 20 seats in the House, with many absentee ballots still uncounted. In the Senate, the Democrats are on track to gain five seats, creating a 52-48 majority. It is during these early hours that Trump would take to the airwaves to claim a Republican victory, accusing the Democrats of fraud and promising legal action.

The comparison with 2020 is inevitable but imperfect. In 2020, Trump contested the results of a presidential election—a single, symbolically centralized vote. In 2026, the midterms encompass 435 House races and 35 Senate races. The geographic spread of potential challenges is immense. This is precisely why The Nation refers to a “rolling coup”—a coup d’état that could unfold simultaneously in ten, fifteen, or twenty states, each with its own election laws, its own secretaries of state, and its own courts.

Texas, Georgia, North Carolina: States to Watch

Washington Monthly identifies specific states as potential epicenters of post-election challenges. In Georgia, new administrative rules adopted after 2020 allow election officials to investigate results before certification, deliberately slowing down the process. In North Carolina, Trump orders three federal prosecutors of his choosing to launch “fraud investigations” as soon as the first unfavorable projections emerge. In Texas, Governor Greg Abbott is portrayed as a key ally in a scenario where certification is blocked.

These scenarios are not pure fiction: they are based on real precedents—the FBI raid on the Fulton County Courthouse in February 2026, the seizure of 2020 ballots, and the investigations opened against election groups in Ohio and California. These pre-election actions are dress rehearsals, according to Washington Monthly. They test reactions, gauge resistance, and establish legal precedents intended to be reused after November.

What deeply troubles me is the systematic nature of it all. Each action—the raid in Fulton, the investigations in Ohio, the executive orders on mail-in voting—is presented as isolated, circumstantial, and justified by legal necessity. But the sum of these actions forms a coherent picture that The Nation aptly calls: the architecture of a coup.

Former Presidents and Vice Presidents as a Bulwark

Washington Monthly describes a plan for institutional resistance on an unprecedented scale. The idea: to form a Committee on Electoral Integrity bringing together former presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama, and Biden; former vice presidents Quayle, Gore, Cheney (represented by Liz Cheney), Pence, and Harris; former Supreme Court justices Anthony Kennedy and Stephen Breyer; former federal judge Michael Luttig; former Fed Chair Jerome Powell; and investor Warren Buffett. These “meta-election observers” would be prepared to speak with one voice should the coup attempt move into the operational phase.

Powell has, in fact, sent a strong signal: he stated that the markets could lose a third of their value if the election results were not respected and if the United States were perceived as no longer a democracy. This type of financial signal—coming from the historic guardian of U.S. monetary policy—carries considerable symbolic weight. It serves as a reminder to economic elites that their own material interests are tied to the survival of democratic institutions.

The Supreme Court as the Final Arbiter

In the Washington Monthly scenario, it is ultimately the Supreme Court that rules, in a 5-4 decision, that the NPSM-7 and the PEADs do not apply to domestic politics and that fraud investigations cannot delay the resolution of the midterm elections. The majority opinion notes that, under the Constitution, the Senate alone determines who shall serve in it. Even the incumbent Republican senators—Cassidy, Collins, Cornyn, and Tillis—would have voted with the Democrats to seat the new members.

This scenario remains hypothetical. But it illustrates a fundamental constitutional truth: the United States has strong institutional safeguards—independent courts, a Supreme Court, and senators with interests of their own that extend beyond partisan loyalty. The question is whether these safeguards will hold up against an executive branch determined to systematically circumvent them. That is the question November 2026 will pose in real time.

I place my trust in the institutions—not out of naivety, but because I have no realistic alternative. A democracy that capitulates to its own executive branch no longer deserves that name. And the West, as a whole, has too much to lose to allow the United States to slide into chaos in silence.

Fifteen million protesters: a massive statement

Alongside institutional mechanisms, a grassroots counter-movement is taking shape in the United States around the No Kings movement. In its June 2026 scenario, Washington Monthly describes No Kings rallies at more than 2,100 events across the country at the start of early voting, drawing 15 million people. If just 10% of participants were to become election volunteers, the operation would surpass the scale of Obama’s 2008 election campaign—the largest in American history.

This movement is the direct grassroots response to the “rolling coup.” It involves monitoring polling places, mobilizing early voting, and taking to the streets to challenge any attempt to deny the results. Gephardt and Wirth, writing in The Nation, make a similar appeal: “We believe that an awakened America can stop what a slumbering America cannot.” ” The verb “awake” is key—it refers to the collective awareness of a threat that is building incrementally and that each person, taken individually, tends to downplay.

The Risks of Escalation: Violence and Counter-Mobilization

The downside of popular mobilization is the risk of escalation. Washington Monthly notes that at some “No Kings” rallies, violent protesters—the same ones who had disrupted peaceful vigils outside ICE detention centers in New Jersey—clashed with police. Three out of 2,100 events turned violent, but that was enough for Trump and his media allies to turn them into a narrative pretext. According to the Washington Monthly scenario, Steve Bannon reportedly suggested to Trump that he deploy ICE and other federal law enforcement agencies to polling places—a decision that would have caused Trump’s popularity to plummet even further.

The Proud Boys—some of whose members have been pardoned by Trump—are described in this scenario as potentially attacking peaceful anti-Trump protesters. The combination of pardoned paramilitary militias, illegally deployed federal forces, and classified emergency powers forms an explosive cocktail. The Nation warns that Trump has already established “training grounds” for his troops: the more than 200 strikes in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific that killed over 200 people designated as narco-terrorists have accustomed the U.S. military to operating outside normal constitutional constraints.

Violence in the streets is the worst-case scenario—not because it is inevitable, but because it always works in favor of whoever controls law enforcement. Trump knows this. That is why discipline among protesters is as much a strategic necessity as it is a moral imperative.

America Under the Watchful Eye of Its Allies

The U.S. midterm elections are not just a domestic issue. They are being watched with growing intensity by Washington’s allies—in Europe, Canada, Japan, and South Korea. The question is not merely whether Trump will be weakened or strengthened in his erratic foreign policy. The question is whether the United States will remain a functioning democracy and thus a reliable ally for the Western system it has itself built since 1945.

The Nation notes that Trump is spending “more than a billion dollars a day on a destabilizing war against Iran”—a figure that, if accurate, illustrates the scale of resources mobilized for a foreign policy whose consequences reverberate from Brussels to Tel Aviv via Kyiv. Ukraine, exhausted by more than four years of Russian aggression, is watching Washington with particular anxiety: Could a Trump weakened by a Democratic Congress maintain—or even strengthen—U.S. support for Kyiv? Or would his domestic weakness result in an even more unpredictable foreign policy?

China, Russia, and Iran as Beneficiaries of American Chaos

China is watching the political chaos in the U.S. with barely concealed satisfaction. Every institutional crisis in the United States reinforces Beijing’s propaganda about the superiority of the authoritarian model—“look how disorderly and ineffective their democracy is.” Putin’s Russia, engaged in its war of aggression against Ukraine, hopes that a Trump emasculated by a Democratic Congress will be less able to maintain support for Kyiv. Iran, embroiled in a conflict with the United States, is playing its own part.

These three powers—China, Russia, and Iran, with North Korea as an interested observer—share a common interest: to see the West tear itself apart from within. The ongoing American upheaval is not their doing, but it works to their advantage. That is why the defense of American democratic institutions is an issue that transcends national borders. What is at stake in November 2026 is not just the future of Trump’s second term—it is the credibility of the liberal democratic model in the face of its authoritarian adversaries.

I think of Zelenskyy, who has defended Ukrainian democracy under Russian bombardment for more than four years, only to watch the world’s leading democracy tear itself apart from within. There is something profoundly unjust about this situation. The West must earn the support it asks of others.

The “Necessary Evil” Argument: Its Limitations

Trump has been elected twice. This is a democratic fact that cannot be dismissed out of hand. One interpretation of his return to power presents him as a “necessary evil” for the West: his firm stance on NATO defense spending has indeed led European allies to increase their military budgets; his hard-line immigration policy addressed a genuine demand from a segment of the Western electorate; his skepticism toward globalization captures the legitimate economic anxiety of the downsized middle class.

But the “necessary evil” argument has a structural limitation: it assumes that Trump’s excesses remain contained within solid institutional safeguards. Yet NPSM-7, the PEADs, political raids, attempts to restrict voting, and the “rolling coup” rhetoric documented by The Nation and Washington Monthly show that these safeguards are being actively tested and undermined. A “necessary evil” that destroys the very institutions that make it “necessary”—rather than merely catastrophic—ceases to be a manageable evil; it becomes a systemic threat.

The Institutional Red Line

There is a red line that even the most pragmatic defenders of Trumpism cannot cross without losing their own legitimacy: the falsification of election results. Democracies can absorb bad policies, corrupt leaders, and temporary abuses of power—they have mechanisms to correct themselves. What they cannot absorb is the destruction of the corrective mechanisms themselves. Systematically contesting legitimate elections, criminalizing the opposition, using law enforcement as a partisan tool—this is exactly what Gephardt and Wirth call “the first task of any coup: to make its premature recognition seem inevitable.”

Trump’s remark at the Republican seminar on January 6, 2026—“they’ll find a reason to impeach me”—reveals a worldview in which the opposition’s legitimacy is denied from the outset. This is not the worldview of a Democrat who accepts the electoral process. It is the worldview of a man who views power as a fortress to be defended, not as a temporary responsibility entrusted by the people.

I refuse to accept this as inevitable. Trump is not inevitable, and the “rolling coup” is not unstoppable. But refusing to accept this as inevitable requires calling things by their proper names: what is brewing for the post-November period is not an ordinary political dispute. It is an existential test of American institutions, with consequences for the entire West.

Who Votes in Midterm Elections—and Why It Changes Everything

U.S. midterm elections are not high-turnout elections. Voter turnout is structurally lower than in presidential elections—often by 20 to 25 percentage points. This means that the difference in mobilization among partisan bases is the determining factor. In 2022, the Republican wave predicted by the polls turned into a modest gain, largely because the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade had galvanized female Democratic voters. In 2026, Democratic mobilization stems from an even more fundamental source: the perception of an existential threat to democracy itself.

Opinion polls from June 2026 show deep disapproval of Trump among independent voters and record enthusiasm among the Democratic base. The Washington Monthly reports on “No Kings” rallies that are shaping an unprecedented mobilization effort. The comparison to the 2008 Obama campaign—one million volunteers on Election Day—is no coincidence. It underscores the magnitude of the energy that could translate into a substantial Democratic electoral victory if properly channeled.

Absentee Ballots: The Invisible Legal Front

The battle over mail-in voting is simultaneously a legal, logistical, and psychological battle. The restrictions imposed by Trump have been blocked by the courts, but they have sown doubt and confusion in the minds of millions of voters who no longer know whether their ballots will be counted. Thirty percent of Americans vote by mail—a large enough share that widespread discouragement among them could change the outcome of close races in dozens of districts.

Voter rights groups—Democracy Docket, the Brennan Center for Justice, and Protect Democracy—are on high alert. They have assembled legal teams in every key state to counter attempts at decertification, ballot raids, and politicized investigations. It is an army of lawyers and legal experts standing ready to intervene in real time if the “rolling coup” moves to action. Their presence is a testament to the fact that American institutions have learned lessons from 2020—but also that the threats of 2026 are on an entirely different scale.

I think of all those voters who are hesitant, who wonder whether their vote will really count, whether their mail-in ballots will arrive on time, or whether their polling place will be intimidated by federal agents. This hesitation is itself a victory for those who want to discourage participation. Voting in November 2026 will be a civic duty, but also an act of courage.

The Absolute Turning Point of a Second Term

November 2026 will be the pivotal moment of Donald Trump’s second term. If the Republicans defy history and maintain their majority in the House—an unlikely but not impossible scenario—Trump will have a clear path for his final two years in office, free from any legislative opposition. If the Democrats retake the House—a scenario that historical data and current projections make likely—impeachment will once again become a formal option, congressional investigations will resume, and Trump’s emergency powers will be subject to genuine legislative oversight. This is not merely a change in the majority—it is a structural transformation of the constitutional balance of power.

Gephardt and Wirth’s Warning

The final warning from Richard Gephardt and Timothy Wirth in the June 22, 2026, issue of The Nation is worth repeating: “Unless we begin to act with resolve, courage, and a clear-eyed commitment to our democracy, a future election will be lost, and our democracy will likely be destroyed.” This statement is not campaign rhetoric. It comes from two men who have served their country in Congress for decades, who know American institutions from the inside, and who have decided to sound the alarm publicly at the risk of being labeled alarmists. Their credibility deserves to be taken seriously—by Americans, and by all those around the world who still have something to lose if the world’s greatest democracy falters.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist