Midterm Preview: Brace for Impact

What to expect when no one knows anything

Election Day is finally here, and no one really knows what’s going to happen.

Most polling suggests Republicans are in for a shellacking. House and Senate, gone. On the one hand, that seems perfectly plausible. The opposition party typically does well in midterm elections. Democrats are frothing at the mouth. They’ve waited two years for this moment.

Republicans just want it to be over. Donald Trump is unpopular and somewhat unfocused. His most consistent message in the closing days of the campaign: Jon Husted, the GOP Senate candidate in Ohio, has a fabulous ass. The vibes are such that few would confidently dismiss the possibility that James Talarico, a drag queen-loving avatar of insufferable wokeness, will be the next U.S. senator from Texas.

On the other hand, a Democratic rout would mean the polls were basically right. That would be genuinely shocking. If they’re wrong, and Republicans do better than expected—retaining control of the Senate while narrowly losing the House, for instance—Democrats will struggle to maintain their composure. They might start to question the sanctity of our democracy. If they fail to capture either chamber, the meltdown will be extraordinary.

What We Know: The Intifada Will Be Socialized

Regardless of the outcome on Tuesday, the House Democratic caucus is guaranteed to get measurably crazier in 2027. Radical left-wing candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America won primaries across the country this year and face no meaningful opposition in the general election. They campaigned with Hasan Piker, the Los Angeles-based anti-American influencer who loves Mao Zedong almost as much as he hates Israel. Here they come.

The incoming class will include New York’s Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, a Columbia graduate student and professional activist (pardon the redundancy) who attended a pro-Hamas rally the day after the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel. Avila Chevalier’s boyfriend, Ramzi Kassem, is a former al Qaeda lawyer who currently serves as chief legal counsel to New York City mayor Zohran Mamdani.

They’ll be joined by Melat Kiros, the 29-year-old Ph.D. student from Colorado who ousted a 15-term Democratic congresswoman in the primary. She said the Sept. 11 terrorist attack was the “inevitable” result of America’s colonial aggression, and declined to say whether Mohamed Sabry Soliman—the Egyptian immigrant who firebombed a Jewish march in Boulder, Colo.—was motivated by antisemitism.

Pennsylvania’s Chris Rabb, who praised a notorious cop-killer and called for the mass execution of corporate CEOs, and New Jersey’s Adam Hamawy, a Brazilian butt lift specialist who testified on behalf of the Islamic cleric who inspired the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, are heavily favored to win.

House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries (D., N.Y.) is in line to become speaker of the House if Democrats take over. The party’s radicals—freshmen or otherwise—may be reluctant to support him without significant concessions on their priorities: abolishing Israel and imprisoning Republicans. Good luck!

What We Don’t: All Eyes on Michigan

Regardless of what happens elsewhere, the outcome of Michigan’s U.S. Senate race is likely to have the greatest implications for Democrats heading into the 2028 election cycle. Abdul El-Sayed, a committed socialist and anti-Israel enthusiast, is the only swing-state Senate candidate endorsed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D., N.Y.) in the primary, and the only Senate candidate to campaign with Piker.

El-Sayed’s campaign is a test run for the eclectic coalition some Democrats hope to assemble in 2028. He’s backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) as well as Hassan Qazwini, the Muslim preacher Sanders once denounced for “spreading antisemitic conspiracy theories.” He supports sex-change surgeries for minors, and prays at a mosque whose imam preaches that homosexuality is “against human nature.” The top-ranking Jewish Democrat, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer of New York, wants El-Sayed to win, as does Osama Siblani, the Dearborn activist who praised Hamas and called for Israeli Jews to be sent “back to Poland.”

Democrats are already in a state of disarray over Michigan after Rep. Haley Stevens (D., Mich.), the establishment-backed candidate El-Sayed narrowly defeated in the primary, endorsed Republican Mike Rogers days before the election. “We can’t stand with hate,” she told reporters on Sunday. “We can’t stand with Hasan Piker.”

Democratic leaders and other anti-Trump commentators loudly denounced Stevens for refusing to put party before country. The angst will surely intensify if El-Sayed narrowly loses and Republicans keep the Senate. “If, God forbid, Abdul loses, this will be a watershed moment in Democratic politics,” wrote left-wing podcaster Wajahat Ali. “The fire will rise. It’s over. People will be radicalized against corporate, pro-Israel Dems. There will be a reckoning.”

Even if El-Sayed wins, Democrats are bound to keep squabbling as the presidential primary kicks off. Especially if he wins. El-Sayed has said himself that getting elected to the Senate would give him a platform to push the Democratic Party in a more radical direction. For obvious reasons, he is particularly keen to support a primary challenge against Sen. John Fetterman (D., Pa.) in 2028. “You put one ogre on a pike, and then everyone else gets the message, and all of a sudden starts to sound a lot different,” he said in July.

If you thought the midterms were crazy, just wait.