IMMEDIATE RELEASE 25 September 2026WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUNDToday’s Events in Historical PerspectiveAmerica’s Longest-Running Column, Founded 1932Blue tidal waveBy Douglas Cohn and Eleanor Clift WASHINGTON – If current trends hold, the November midterms will be the most significant election since 1932, when many Republican incumbents were thrown out of Congress, giving newly-elected President Franklin Roosevelt a clean sweep to push through the New Deal and transform politics into the next century. The House of Representatives has already been privately conceded by Republicans, but the shock is about to also hit the Senate, where as many as seven new Democratic senators may flip the majority.As in 1932, the country is not about to be swept up in a blue wave; it is about to be overwhelmed by a blue tidal wave, enhanced by a red undertow gratis of President Trump. Between alienating almost every ally worldwide, unconstitutionally imposing inflationary tariffs, and initiating an unpopular and inflation-inducing war that has driven up gas prices and made everything more expensive, Trump is trapped in a quagmire of his own making.In less than two years, he squandered an enviable political position where he created a conservative supermajority in the Supreme Court and his party won a majority in both chambers of Congress whose members spinelessly put careers over country and enabled his autocratic impulses.With the tidal wave now on the horizon, more and more Republican candidates for the House and Senate are abandoning his ship of state. But it is too little, too late. The lifeboats are missing. Iowa Rep. Ashley Hinson is calling for an end to the Iran war, this after voting six times against a resolution opposing the war. She changed her tune after a poll showed her losing to Democrat Josh Turek, a state legislator and Paralympian. Early voting is already underway in some states, and voters are not buying last-minute conversions.Democrats currently have forty-seven seats in the Senate. They need four more to achieve the majority. Six months ago, that seemed impossible with seven of the nine competitive races in states that Trump won in 2024.Now, thanks to Trump, the Democrats’ fortunes have significantly improved. “He went from unpopular to toxic to radioactive,” says Charlie Cook, a longtime nonpartisan political handicapper and founder of the Cook Political Report. In Georgia, previously a Republican possible pickup, Democrats should easily hold onto the Senate seat won six years ago by Jon Ossoff, a rising talent and potential presidential candidate who is being given national exposure thanks to Trump’s schoolyard slurs against him. In North Carolina, the popular two-term governor, Democrat Roy Cooper, is expected to win the seat being vacated by Sen. Thom Tillis, who chose not to seek reelection due to Trumpian pressure after he violated the go-along-to-get-along mantra of his fellow Senate Republicans.In Maine, where Susan Collins is vying for a sixth term, Democrat Troy Jackson is running behind in a state Democrats once believed they had to win if they had any chance at gaining the majority in the Senate. Jackson is behind Collins in the latest polls, but a late-breaking scandal over pay-to-play that implicates a past Collins campaign could break through with voters sick of Washington’s ways.Democrat Sherrod Brown is making an improbable comeback for a Senate seat in Ohio after losing the seat he once held two years ago. And in Texas, former President George Bush omitted Attorney General Ken Paxton’s name from a list of endorsements he made at a Texas Republican fundraiser,Paxton is uniquely disliked, having been impeached by his own party in the Texas legislature. Paxton is running for the Senate against state legislator James Tallarico, who could be the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Texas since the 1980’s.Talk about improbable wins. Another one is Kansas, where Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of a United Methodist megachurch, is narrowly leading Republican Roger Marshall in a state that last sent a Democrat to the Senate in the 1930’s. A gynecologist and obstetrician, Marshall is getting excoriated in the media for having sued 700 patients for failure to fully pay their bills, with 81 arrested, not a popular thing for Kansas voters to only now learn about.Add in Mary Peltola, who previously won a House seat as Alaska’s sole representative (Alaska is one of six low-population states with a single representative). She is running for the Senate against incumbent Republican Dan Sullivan, and having proven her statewide appeal, she is another possible pickup for the Democrats.Democrats could pick up as many as seven seats. They could also lose one or two and still gain the majority. After all, who knows what Pennsylvania’s rogue Democratic Senator John Fetterman might do. Republicans have tried to recruit him, but as a political barometer, he would be better off sticking with the winners.In desperation, Trump and his minions have tried redistricting, threats of ICE agents at polling places, engaging the Postal Service to screen mail-in ballots, and urging their billionaire buddies to flood the market with soft money, only to discover a universal truth: no one has yet discovered how to stop a tidal wave.See Eleanor Clift’s book Selecting a President, and Douglas Cohn’s latest books The President’s First Year: The Only School for Presidents Is the Presidency and World War 4: Nine Scenarios (endorsed by seven flag officers).© 2026 U.S. News Syndicate, IncDistributed by U.S. News Syndicate, Inc.END WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
CandC-25-September-2026-Blue-Tidal-Wave.docx