The Midterms Will Test More Than the President

Midterm elections are often described as referendums on the president. That description is convenient, but incomplete.

The 2026 elections will determine control of Congress at a moment when the country is confronting unusually consequential questions about spending, foreign policy, immigration, artificial intelligence, and the limits of executive power. The result will therefore matter not simply as a judgment on one administration, but as a decision about which institutions will have the authority to shape the next two years of American policy.

The political environment is already unusually intense. Spending by wealthy individuals and corporations, including interests connected to technology and cryptocurrency, is helping make the 2026 elections among the most expensive midterms in American history.

Money is not new to American politics. What has changed is the scale and concentration of influence.

Congressional elections are also increasingly shaped by redistricting. Missouri provides an especially visible example: a court has allowed new Trump-backed congressional districts to be used in November, adding another layer of controversy to an election that was already highly competitive.

The danger is that voters begin to view congressional elections exclusively through the lens of national personalities.

That weakens the institution itself.

A member of Congress is not merely a representative of a party's presidential candidate. Members vote on budgets, judicial confirmations, military authorizations, regulations, taxes, and legislation that can affect people's lives for decades. Yet campaigns often reduce those complicated questions to a handful of national talking points.

Voters should resist that simplification.

The more important question in November may not be "Which party do I prefer?" but "What do I want Congress to do?"

Those are different questions.

A voter can support a president while believing Congress should challenge that president. A voter can oppose a president while preferring divided government. A voter can support a political party nationally while disagreeing with its congressional candidate locally.

That independence is not political inconsistency. It is precisely what representative government is supposed to permit.

The 2026 midterms will therefore test whether Americans still think of Congress as an institution or merely as another battlefield in presidential politics.

There is no guarantee that the more thoughtful candidate will win. There is no guarantee that divided government will produce better legislation. Elections do not offer such assurances.

But voters can at least demand more from the process.

The country faces problems that cannot be solved through slogans. Debt requires arithmetic. Immigration requires administration. Foreign policy requires judgment. Technology requires regulation without suffocating innovation.

Congress will have to deal with all of them.

The midterms will determine who gets to try.