Suspense-filled midterms

PUBLISHED: June 1, 2026 | foxbaltimore.com

PASADENA, CALIFORNIA - NOVEMBER 04: A person enters a polling station to vote at First United Methodist Church on November 04, 2025 in Pasadena, California. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Seldom have midterm elections for Congress been so filled with suspense, like a Sherlock Holmes mystery. With less than six months to go before November balloting, even prediction markets are challenged.

These are plausible outcomes:

1. Democrats capture control of the House and Senate buoyed by a stagnant economy, soaring energy prices, a pointless forever war in Iran, an extravagant ballroom evocative of King Louis XIV’s Palace of Versailles, and President Donald Trump’s disdain for the financial squeeze on ordinary Americans caused by the billion dollar per day war with Iran and the closing of the Strait of Hormuz.

Mr. Trump was asked earlier this month whether Americans’ financial situation was motivating him to make a deal with Iran. He callously replied, “Not even a little bit.” The President’s defense budget has soared to an extravagant $1.5 trillion, while parsimony is visited on the disadvantaged by slashing spending on Medicaid and SNAP.

If Congress flips to control by Democrats, impeachment of President Trump by a simple majority is inevitable. But whether a two-thirds majority in the Senate required for conviction is debatable. Popularity is fragile amidst evidence of corruption or lawlessness. President Richard Nixon captured 49 states, more than 60 percent of the popular vote, and 520 electoral votes in landslide in 1972. Yet he resigned under an impeachment cloud on August 8, 1974, and his Republican supporters in the House and Senate were crushed in the midterms.

The Republicans in the House and Senate have been reduced to President Trump’s echo chambers or claques after his obliterations of Rep. Thomas Massie and Sen. John Cornyn in their respective primary races in Kentucky and Texas. But in the general election, Mr. Trump may be a sinking ship. His current approval rating has slumped to 36-3%, while his corresponding disapproval rating has climbed to 58-6%. The midterms will be a national referendum on Mr. Trump, which may be an incubus for Republican candidates.

2. Republicans retain control of both the House and Senate by slim margins.

Democrats are unpopular. Their leadership is anemic, droopy, and benumbing. They have no economic plan other than discredited government spending and borrowing squeezing out private enterprise—the wellspring of prosperity. They can’t acknowledge the difference between FEDEX—the child of monetary incentives—and the USPS—born of government incentives for lethargy or idleness. Democrats spend 23 hours of every day dreaming up ways to redistribute wealth while Republicans work to create wealth 23 hours of every day to moot the issue of redistribution.

Democrats are fixated on fringe social issues like LGBTQ, biological men competing in women’s sporting events, and disparaging religion in public life. They are weak on illegal immigration. They have no political convictions other than seeking and retaining power for its own sake. All they have going for them is that they are not Republican rubber stamps for Trump.

But is that good enough to stimulate voter turnout?

If Republicans retain control of both chambers of Congress, even more unchecked power will migrate to the White House. The legislative branch will be reduced to the insignificance of extras in a Cecil B. DeMille cinematic extravaganza.

3. Democrats capture control of the House but Republicans retain their majority in the Senate.

This is a formula for legislative gridlock and government be continuing resolutions and executive orders that bypass the deliberative process and transparency. The House might impeach President Trump but the Senate would almost assuredly acquit creating more partisan bitterness and divisiveness.

Does the United States need a new party? The Whig party died in 1854 to be superseded by the Republican Party, soon to win the presidency in 1860 lead by Abraham Lincoln. But does anyone discern an Abe Lincoln in our contemporary politics? Is anyone paying attention to President George Washington’s first inaugural address?: “The smiles of heaven can never be expected upon a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right that Heaven itself has ordained.

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Mr. Williams is Manager/Sole Owner of Howard Stirk Holdings I & II Broadcast Television Stations and the 2016 Multicultural Media Broadcast Owner of the year.

www.armstrongwilliams.com | www.howardstirkholdings.com

Follow me on X: @arightside

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Editor's Note: Sinclair Broadcast Group has a business relationship with Armstrong Williams, who is a political commentator and the owner of Howard Stirk Holdings.