Overhaul Project Put to the Test at the Polls
The US midterm elections in November 2026 will put all 435 seats in the House of Representatives and 35 out of 100 Senate seats up for renewal. The Republican Party currently controls both Congress and the White House, but this is highly likely to change after the midterms. On the main prediction markets, Democrats are currently considered the clear favorite to win the House, with a substantial chance of also winning the Senate (on Polymarket, associated probabilities are 81% for the House and 43% for controlling both).
The Trump administration has a lot at stake in these elections. The first two years of this administration have implemented an extremely ambitious policy of redefining the country's institutional framework and the ways in which the United States' central geopolitical and geoeconomic role in the world is manifested. The midterm elections risk making the continuation of this strategy much more complex. Therefore, the administration has several institutional initiatives in the pipeline to shift the outcome in favor of the Republicans. They include the "SAVE America Act," which imposes more stringent requirements for voter registration, restrictions on mail-in voting, and above all, a massive push for electoral redistricting (gerrymandering). The political and financial support for ICE can also be seen as a mechanism to limit ethnic minorities' access to the vote through a policy of intimidation and violence.
The Clash Between the Executive and the Judiciary
Beyond the potential effectiveness of these initiatives, the battle over their implementation highlights the complex and essentially conflictual relationship between the judiciary and the executive branch. This is despite the fact that according to many observers, in cases related to Trump, the Supreme Court has developed a fast-track, opaque procedure that has often ended up expanding or protecting presidential power.
The conflict between the White House and the judiciary has become a central issue in American politics. Important recent examples include the battle over presidential immunity in 2024, the power of domestic injunctions versus the president's executive orders, the power of the executive to impose tariffs and duties, and its discretionary power in matters of immigration and national security. This conflict is not just a recent phenomenon — for example, in 2023 the Supreme Court invalidated Biden's plan to cancel student debt — but what is new is that many policies are now being constructed with litigation as a normal step: the president acts, states/NGOs/individuals bring the administration to court, federal judges block or uphold and the Supreme Court redraws the boundaries. In such political context, the legislative branch appears now incapable of operating separately from the executive branch, so that its ability to resume doing so is a significant part of what’s at stake in these midterm elections.
The Administrative Rebuilding Project
Indirectly, however, these midterms are being asked to respond — as if they were a referendum — to the project of a deep overhaul of government pursued by the administration. This project has an essential component represented by a political bloc of powerful tech entrepreneurs, from Elon Musk to Peter Thiel and Marc Andreessen. Starting from the perspective of classical libertarianism, they have moved towards disillusionment with liberal democracy, and the search for spaces of private or semi-private sovereignty, down to political-institutional order — in some cases explicitly anti-democratic in form — in which creative/capitalist minorities are unencumbered by electoral majorities, bureaucracies, redistribution, universities and the media. The political philosophy of this bloc is no longer solely anchored in libertarian principle and economic interest — Musk, during the DOGE era, said he wanted to "delete the mountain of choking regulations” — but represents a fusion of tech capital, nationalism, cultural anti-liberalism, selective industrial policy and hostility toward universities/media/bureaucracy. This political philosophy has since found pragmatic support and a veritable operating manual in Project 2025, the transition and governance plan prepared by the conservative Heritage Foundation to rapidly transform a Republican presidency into an instrument of direct control of the federal state.
What’s at Stake for the World
This administration's institutional refoundation project not only has a domestic relevance, as the nationalism that permeates it has also led to a redefinition in the manifestation of the country's political and economic power in international relations.
Historically, the United States has experienced long periods of intense isolationism or semi-isolationism. The country's position as a powerful guarantor of the international order — NATO, Bretton Woods, the dollar, international multilateral institutions — is relatively recent, on the heels of World War II, and has since suffered various setbacks from Vietnam to Iraq/Afghanistan. But the Trump administration's strategy is not isolationism. Rather, it is a form of anti-liberal ideological interventionism, especially in Europe. It aims to delegitimize centrist European elites (at the cost of normalizing right-wing nationalists), and weaken the EU and supranational regulation. Supporting Rassemblement National in France and AfD in Germany is the means to this end, namely to transform Europe from a relatively autonomous liberal hub into a constellation of divided nation-states, all dependent on the US militarily and technologically. In this sense, even the cultural battle being waged — portraying Europe as a white/Christian/Western civilization threatened by immigration, Islam, secularism and multiculturalism — is a means to the pursue the same end.
A Decisive Event
In conclusion, I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that this year's midterms will be the most important and significant elections of my generation, also for their impact on our children's future.