The US midterm elections on 3 November are shaping up as a referendum on a presidency defined by war abroad and affordability collapse at home. Donald Trump's approval ratings are plummeting, his Maga coalition is fraying, and Guardian US reporters hear the same refrain in every community they visit: Americans feel governed by an untouchable elite class, a sentiment crystallised by Democratic senator Jon Ossoff's coinage of the term "Epstein class." The affordability crisis — childcare, healthcare, food, gas — is the throughline connecting voter anger across partisan lines. Yet the structural picture is not straightforward. Republicans hold a decisive fundraising advantage and Trump's base remains among the most motivated voter blocs in the country. Trump himself is launching a rally blitz starting in Nebraska, promising a "big surprise" on election night — a phrase that doubles as both campaign rhetoric and implicit threat given his administration's recent moves to restrict voting methods. In a Time magazine interview, Trump refused to rule out declaring a national emergency around elections to implement executive orders on voting. The Guardian's Washington editor Ankita Rao, who runs the US elections newsletter The Stakes, offers a blunt assessment: if the election were held tomorrow, Democrats would "absolutely win the House and most likely win the Senate." But she immediately adds the critical caveat — Trump bypassed congressional authorisation altogether for the Iran war. A Democratic Congress may win the power to investigate, but constraining executive action is a different matter entirely. The disconnect between Trump and his own supporters is widening. Voters who backed him as the anti-establishment candidate now watch him align with big tech and corporate interests. As one Ohio voter told the Guardian: "I'm sorry, but I don't give a shit whose name is on the Kennedy Center." Trump's political instincts, once his greatest asset, are faltering because "he can't see beyond his own fixations" — his ballroom, the Iran war, unfettered AI growth. Election integrity looms as the meta-issue. Trump has signed executive orders asserting control over voting methods, and legal challenges in individual races are "almost inevitable," according to Rao. Fear of election rigging is high among Democratic voters, particularly around mail-in ballots — the method used by nearly one-third of Americans. Paradoxically, this fear may drive higher turnout: early data from deep-red Florida shows Democratic voter registration already running very high. The progressive flank adds another variable. Democratic socialists are capturing voter enthusiasm, but the handful likely to win seats face a strategic choice: follow Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's collaborative model or adopt a hardline stance, particularly on Israel's decimation of Gaza, which has already torn open divisions within the Democratic party. The Greens in England and Wales have formally equated Zionism with racism — a position that, while across the Atlantic, signals the growing pressure on centre-left parties everywhere regarding the Israel-Palestine question. Meanwhile, the militarisation of American cities provides the visual backdrop. National Guard trucks in Washington DC, military presence in Minneapolis and LA — these are not abstractions for residents but daily realities that add "a layer of subtle fear." Yet the response, at least in Democratic-leaning cities, is defiance: double the lawn signs, higher engagement, a determination to make victories so decisive they cannot be questioned.
