Republicans are shaking in their boots about the upcoming midterm elections, according to numerous reports. In a Wednesday episode of his podcast, Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said his home state “is excruciatingly close,” adding that “we could lose Texas. Let me repeat that: We could lose Texas. And by the way, not just the Senate race. We could lose every single statewide race in Texas. That’s how close these numbers are.”
According to Politico, House Republicans aren’t quietly discussing whether or not they’ll lose their majority, but are counting how many seats. “It could be quite a brutal evening,” a senior Republican told the outlet. The mood at the White House is “grim,” the New York Times reported as advisers close to the White House anticipate at least losing the House, if not the Senate.
That’s seemingly why the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has dumped nearly half $1 billion into the race, mostly into his own America PAC. The PAC’s spending has focused overwhelmingly in Texas with approximately $48 million, followed by Michigan and Ohio around $9 million and Iowa at $4 million. According to CNN, Musk’s spending streak “makes him the single, largest disclosed donor in modern American politics and one of the Republican Party’s largest-ever benefactors.”
But some people are already looking beyond next Tuesday to see how President Donald Trump may react, and not just by challenging the results, which is more than expected and arguably already being attempted. But the president’s legal options are limited, so even if he does try to seize voting machines, declares a national emergency, or otherwise wedges the federal government into the electoral process, there’s a chance it could fail. Jonathan Diaz, director of voting advocacy and partnerships at the Campaign Legal Center, told Forbes that the president can “certainly try” to intervene, but there “just isn’t a lot that he can actually do.”
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Still, most analysts anticipate that the president will turn the dial up on his dual wars, the trade wars with America’s partners and the Iran war Trump started alongside Israel in late February 2026. The Pentagon is slowly building up its military presence in the Middle East, including drawing up plans to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, energy infrastructure and missile and drone stockpile.
“It might be difficult for Democrats in Congress to restrain Trump from a course of action which he is strongly committed to, but they can still raise the political costs associated with plowing ahead,” Andrew Gawthorpe, a senior research fellow in the Foreign Police Centre, told The Independent. “Facing a hostile Congress, Trump might become even more willing to simply ignore domestic opposition and plow ahead with controversial and unpopular policies, as he did by attacking Iran or threatening to annex Greenland.”
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