Election Impact: Will 2026 Be Another Failure of Imagination?
October 2026
A decade ago, Donald Trump was a surprise winner. Most people, maybe even the candidate himself, didn’t believe that he would win a presidential election.
On election night, Democrats had people on the risers at New York’s Javits Center ready to celebrate Hillary Clinton’s victory. But things didn’t turn out as expected. In the words of one Democratic strategist after that race, there was a collective “failure of imagination.”
Ten years later, there’s a risk of a failure of imagination once again, just in a different direction.
It’s been quite a journey for Trump from that big initial victory to losing reelection in 2020 and then winning again in 2024. Now the president’s job approval rating is mired in the high 30s, and the Republican Party could lose control of Capitol Hill in the midterm elections. In the words of Michael Scott of The Office, “Well, well, well, how the turntables.”
Trump’s support has slipped to the point where Republicans risk losing not just swing states and districts, but also some traditionally GOP areas where Democrats haven’t won in years, decades, even generations.
“Can a Democrat really win in Texas?” I get asked almost daily. The short answer is yes, it could happen. Just because most of us have lived through many chapters titled “Texas Is Turning Blue” and those chapters ended with a Republican getting elected, doesn’t mean it can’t happen in 2026. A Democrat hasn’t won a statewide race in Texas since 1994, but that’s not enough reason for another failure of imagination.
The potential ingredients are in place for a Democratic victory. Democrats are fired up to reclaim power in Washington, independents are frustrated with the direction of the country under GOP leadership and there’s a potential for depressed Republican turnout as even some GOP voters are concerned about a sagging economy and war in the Middle East that they were told wasn’t going to happen.
It’s not just going on in Texas. If Republican turnout craters, Democrats could win in some places they haven’t won in a long time.
There hasn’t been a Democratic senator from Kansas in nearly a century, and yet pastor Adam Hamilton could conceivably win in November. His unique résumé, the national political environment and some serious missteps by GOP Sen. Roger Marshall should be enough to move the needle from impossible to possible.
What about Florida? Republicans have been cruising in Florida for the past decade as voters flee Democratic states for freedom and sunshine. Democrats had effectively given up on the onetime swing state until a few months ago. Even if Democrats don’t win the Senate and gubernatorial races, they are putting up serious challenges in a handful of competitive districts that looked unwinnable not long ago.
Depending on how well things go for Democrats in a couple of Tuesdays, there might also be a Democratic governor of Oklahoma, a Democratic-backed independent senator from Nebraska, a new Democratic senator and governor in Alaska, and a Democratic senator from South Carolina.
On the current trajectory, there will be a couple of surprises on election night in races that even the most engaged political junkies aren’t aware of. And those surprises will happen in places where Democrats failed to imagine they could win and Republicans failed to imagine they could lose. In the 2010 GOP wave, Republicans in D.C. scrambled to find a phone number for Blake Farenthold after he won a House seat in Texas because they had no idea who he was and they wanted to welcome him to their caucus.
It’s almost ironic that the potential failure of imagination in 2026 is fueled by Trump’s victory in 2016. Some Republicans simply can’t believe they would ever lose in states and districts where the president has won consistently and handily. They are banking on Republican voters turning out in the end just like always. But that’s an increasingly risky assumption.
Even though this is turning out to be a good Democratic cycle, it’s important to also be aware of potential imagination failures in the other direction.
There hasn’t been a Republican governor of Oregon since Ronald Reagan was in the Oval Office, and yet Republican Christine Drazan could win this fall. She lost a close race to Democrat Tina Kotek in 2022 and is running even closer this time. Just because it’s been a long time since a Republican has prevailed and this is a good Democratic year, doesn’t mean Drazan can’t win. It’s a somewhat similar situation in Minnesota.
The narrative about Democrats winning the House has become so dominant that there’s another risk of failure of imagination: overlooking the possibility that Republicans maintain their majority. While that outcome is unlikely, given that Democrats don’t need a wave election to win the House, it shouldn’t be ruled out entirely.
It’s possible that all of the polling pointing in Democrats’ direction is a mirage. But it’s also possible that it is accurately capturing the mood of a frustrated electorate, and everyone should be open-minded about where Democrats can win and not succumb to the failure of imagination once again.
Nathan L. Gonzales is a senior political analyst for the Public Affairs Council and editor of Inside Elections, a nonpartisan newsletter with a subscription package designed to boost PACs with a regular newsletter and exclusive conference call. You can also hear more on the Inside Elections Podcast. His email address is [email protected].
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On the current trajectory, there will be a couple of surprises on election night in races that even the most engaged political junkies aren’t aware of.
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