On the final day before the 2026 midterm elections, President Donald Trump spoke in front of the Reflecting Pool at the Lincoln Memorial, the site of considerable scandal during his second term. He joked that it should be renamed after him and spent considerable time discussing construction projects in Washington, D.C., and resurrecting conspiracy theories about vandalizing monuments. When the president spoke about the election more than 23 minutes into his hour-long speech, he seemed to foreshadow major Republican defeats in the House and Senate, describing them as “the most important midterm elections, I think, in our lifetime.”
“When you vote, remember that a party that hates America cannot be allowed to rule over the people who built our country,” Trump said, referring to the Democratic Party, which he said hoped to “destroy it all by electing communist jihadists.”
“If those people who voted for me and voted in the last election, we had such a huge victory, if a good portion of them went out and voted, we would win in a landslide,” Trump said midway through his speech. “Now that’s not going to happen because usually no matter who the current president is, Republican or Democratic, uh, good or bad, good president, great president, bad, for some reason, the current president or Democratic, uh, good or bad, good president, great president, bad, for some reason, the current president.
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Polls on the final day showed Democrats had a strong chance of overturning control of the House and Senate. The final results of the New York Times/Siena University poll reported that “the party is leading in all seven states most likely to determine Senate control: Michigan, Kansas, Texas, Maine, Ohio, and more narrowly Alaska and Iowa.” The Cook Political Report’s final projections include Democratic majorities in North Carolina, Florida, and anywhere from 240 seats to 240 seats.
Meanwhile, early voting records were being shattered across the country in places like South Carolina and Ohio. In Texas, more than 7.7 million voters cast their ballots early, surpassing the record turnout set in the 2018 midterm elections. Nationwide, some 50 million votes have been cast so far, and the share of registered Democrats has increased significantly in several key state races. But according to the New York Times, about half of the expected votes will be cast on Election Day, making it difficult to determine how much of a role early voting will play in the outcome.
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