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Photo: Aaron Schwartz/Bloomberg/Getty Images

From the moment Donald Trump emerged from the 2024 election with a narrow victory over Kamala Harris and an even narrower congressional trifecta, he faced the classic dilemma of all second-term presidents: Do you cash in all your political capital to score policy accomplishments or instead help your party by pursuing cautious initiatives that could broaden its voter coalition and minimize the usual midterm losses?

This was a particularly fraught decision for Trump because his idea of “policy accomplishments” involved a vast expansion of presidential power, an inevitably controversial mass-deportation program, a return to protectionist economic strategies, and relentless threats of Mafia-style retribution against his enemies and critics. Given his incredibly high regard for his own uniqueness and his history of disdain for the Republican Party, it would have been the most natural thing in the world for Trump to write off the midterms and plan to leave the White House in 2029 after infuriating and betraying as many allies and voters as possible.

Within moments of his second inauguration, Trump pursued a course of unprecedented extremism that suggested he would be fine with vast midterm losses, deliberately alienating voting blocs (Latinos, younger voters, inflation-sensitive voters) that had moved in the GOP’s direction in 2024 and exhibiting indifference to public opinion generally (a bit disguised by his habit of asserting vast popularity absent, or even against, any evidence).

But then something surprising began happening: Trump started showing considerable personal interest in his party’s midterm prospects, interfering in Republican primaries to promote the most electable options (notably by shoving Marjorie Taylor Greene out of a Senate race) and making sure the White House is as focused on 2026 as he is.

The standard take on Trump’s motivation for this sudden decision to care about his party’s fate is that it’s actually all about himself: He’s worried about being investigated or even impeached by a Democratic House. But given the absence of any evidence that past Democratic House investigations or impeachments inhibited him even a bit, there’s a more lurid possibility: He’s convinced a rabid pursuit of a maximalist agenda is compatible with a successful midterm win and long-term Republican success.

This is consistent with Trump’s longtime belief in a base-first political strategy. If the GOP base wasn’t already completely under Trump’s thrall coming out of the 2024 elections, he’s probably heat-seared his bond with them by the audacity and thrilling hatefulness of his conduct since returning to the White House. You can debate all day long whether the second Trump administration bears the characteristic marks of an authoritarian regime. But without any question, the 47th president’s relationship with his supporters is ducelike. His biggest power grabs please them most, as is evidenced by the rapturous GOP rank-and-file reaction to the idea of sending troops into major U.S. cities to combat a nonexistent crime wave.

But even Trump seems to understand that this might not be enough to reverse the historic pattern of the White House party losing House seats in midterms. And that is why a big part of his own “pivot to the midterms” has been an effort to skew the results with a national gerrymandering effort that effectively increases the GOP House majority from a few seats to perhaps a dozen. To be very clear, this is something that would not have happened without Trump’s personal intervention; in some cases, he’s had to drag state-level Republicans kicking and screaming into this effort, and there will be collateral damage among Republican U.S. House members (especially in California, where Gavin Newsom’s retaliatory gerrymander could extinguish five GOP incumbents) who are sacrificing their own careers to the Leader’s cause.

If changing the geographical landscape isn’t enough to maintain the Republican trifecta, Trump is clearly planning to shift the issue landscape as well by doing everything possible to keep the public focus on topics he believes favor him and his party, including immigration, crime, and national security (or rather “war-fighting”). This last topic remains quite literally an unfired bullet in his chamber. A Wag the Dog scenario of preelection wars or rumors of wars is an ever-present possibility.

Trump has resolved the second-term president’s dilemma by refusing to choose at all between chewing up political capital to get things done and trying to win the midterms. He’s riding two horses past a fork in the road he refuses to acknowledge. After violating almost every existing political (and legal) norm since his reelection, he’s now seeking to extend the wild MAGA party for at least two more years by revving up his base to a state of great excitement, cheating as much as he can, and lying about conditions in the country in order to give himself additional opportunities to keep the opposition (and the courts) off balance.

The scarier question is what Trump will do if (as still appears likely) his efforts fall short. Will he simply reject the midterms results as fraudulent, as he did in 2020? Will he seek to overturn a Democratic House victory via the courts, state-election certifiers, or mass disturbances? Or will he turn to his faithful subaltern Mike Johnson and instruct the outgoing Speaker to refuse to seat every Democrat who’s won a close race? And will the U.S. Supreme Court again look the other way? The 2026 midterms could be Trump’s wildest ride yet.

Trump Bets He Can Have His Extremism — and the Midterms, Too

Trump Bets He Can Have His Extremism — and the Midterms, Too