Data shows Trump is inspiring Democrats to vote — and Republicans to stay home.
The president's voter suppression campaign is poised to backfire by mobilizing the political opposition, while depressing MAGA voter turnout.
By threatening to take over the midterms, surveys show the White House has created unprecedented energy among Democrats and Independents. They’ve also sent a message to MAGA voters: “You can skip the polls.”
This week, House Republicans did something they’ve now tried three separate times. They crammed the SAVE America Act into a “must-pass” bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, and forced it through on a 216-214 vote, hoping that by tying it to funding for U.S. troops they might have a shot of getting it through the Senate.
The move reeked of desperation… desperation foisted upon the GOP by Donald Trump, who is clearly panicking that he’ll lose the midterms if he doesn’t rig them successfully. And that desperation is leading to a self-fulfilling prophecy. New data suggests that the harder Trump tries to manipulate the midterms in his favor, the more he’s doing to ensure his side is defeated.
To be fair, his panic is justified. The latest polling is abysmal for the White House. The president’s approval rating has cratered, with a recent poll finding a meager 30 percent of Americans approve of the job he’s doing. Politically, that’s catastrophic territory, and it’s only possible when millions of your own supporters have turned against you. Trump’s numbers on the economy — once his strongest card — just hit the worst marks of either of his terms. So the writing is on the wall. Even Fox News (hardly a hostile outlet!) published a midterm forecast last week conceding that the GOP’s gerrymandering blitz is the only thing keeping the House majority within the Republican’s reach at all.
But Trump’s unpopularity is only part of the story. The real headline is that the president is sabotaging his own side’s turnout in the very act of seeking to meddle in the election. It’s like a burglary that’s backfiring in real time. Trump is trying mightily to break into democracy’s back door but making such a racket with his crowbar that he’s woken up the whole neighborhood. And now, the neighbors are shouting over the fences and grabbing their baseball bats. Democrats and Independents are more motivated than they’ve been in decades to defend their rights.
Indeed, Democratic enthusiasm is higher than it was even in the 2018 “blue wave” election, when they turned out in historic numbers and crushed Trump’s side with a gain of 40 seats in the U.S. House. Today, a whopping three-fourths of Democrats say it’s “more important” to vote in 2026 than in previous midterms. That’s energy, if I’ve ever seen it.
And it gets worse for the president. Every lever he pulls to “tilt” the playing field risks convincing his own voters they don’t need to show up at all. Remember when he told MAGA faithful that if they re-elected him, they wouldn’t need to go to the polls again? “We’ll have it fixed so good,” he boasted, “you’re not gonna have to vote.” It seems like they took it to heart.
Data shows Republicans aren’t nearly as animated about the midterms as Democrats. In fact, the same Post-Ipsos survey from this month finds that GOP voters are ten percentage points less likely to say they’ll vote in the elections in November. That means if the vote were held today, millions more Republicans than Democrats would be staying home — the type of enthusiasm gap that could decisively sway the outcome.
For this, the president has only himself to blame. He’s sent the loudest possible signal to the MAGA base that he’s taking actions that will guarantee them victory for years to come, without any of them having to lift a finger, let alone getting off their couches to go cast a ballot. In his July 3 speech at Mount Rushmore, Trump even bragged that if he succeeds in enacting his voter suppression schemes, like the SAVE America Act, Republicans “will not lose an election for a hundred years.”
(By the way, if you’ve ever played a sport, it’s not exactly the best strategy to tell your team they can relax on the bench because they’re guaranteed to win.)
What a signal he’s sent. In just eighteen months, Trump has pushed to require citizenship papers — a passport or birth certificate — simply to register to vote, cheered as states passed their own versions of restrictive laws, and pressed Texas to redraw its congressional map mid-decade to conjure five new Republican seats out of thin air, kicking off a nationwide gerrymandering arms race. His allies have openly promised that ICE will “surround the polls” in November. His administration has demanded voter rolls from the states (carting off roughly 200 boxes of 2020 ballots from Fulton County, Georgia, along the way) and tried to rewrite mail-ballot rules by presidential decree. And much more.
Again, each of these election-rigging maneuvers tells the MAGA base: relax, the fix is in! Unfortunately for the Republican Party, the data shows its voters are getting the message. They’re becoming more indifferent. Meanwhile, each attempt to manipulate the outcome sets off another alarm bell for Democrats across every neighborhood where Trump jingles door knobs and swings his crowbar.
The president wanted to mount the biggest midterm election operation in modern history. Well, congratulations, Mr. President. You did it. Your “get out the vote” operation is massive. The only catch is that it’s inspiring the opposition, not your own team.
Your friend, in defiance,
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