The Midterm Curse: Why Presidents Always Lose—And How We Fight It in 2026

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Good Tuesday morning, Patriots. Welcome back to O'Connor's Right Stand. I'm your host, John O'Connor, software programmer by day, conservative truth seeker by night. Last Tuesday night wasn't great for Republicans. Virginia, New Jersey, New York City, all went blue. And I'm watching conservatives predicting doom for 2026. But what many are not talking about, this was predictable. Not because Trump is weak.

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Not because our policies are wrong, but because of a pattern that's been consistent for roughly 91 years. Since 1934, the president's party has lost house seats in 21 out of 23 midterm elections. 21 out of 23. That's a 91 % failure rate. It doesn't matter if you're popular or unpopular, liberal or conservative, good economy or bad.

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The midterm curse comes for everyone. And right now, we're holding the house by just three seats. Just three. History says we're going to lose roughly 28 seats on average. So we can either panic, make excuses, and hope for the best. Or we can understand exactly what we're up against, learn from the only two times it didn't happen, and build a battle plan to minimize the damages.

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That's what we're doing today. The right stand starts now.

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Let's start with the brutal truth. Since 1934, the President's party has lost House seats in 21 out of the 23 midterm elections. That's a failure rate of 91%. The average loss? 28 House seats. Let me give you some recent examples so you understand this pattern. 2018, Trump lost 40 House seats. Lost control of the House entirely. Democrats won the majority and spent the next two years investigating him.

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instead of legislating. 2010, Obama lost 63 House seats, the largest midterm loss since 1938. The Tea Party wave wiped out Democratic control of Congress. 2006, Bush lost 30 House seats, lost the House majority, Iraq war backlash and Hurricane Katrina destroyed Republican momentum. 1994, Clinton lost 54 House seats,

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the Republican Revolution. Newt Gingrich took the speaker's gavel and Republicans controlled the House for the first time in 40 years. Do you see the pattern? It doesn't matter popular or unpopular, economy is good or bad, the midterm curse comes for everyone. The Senate picture is slightly better, but still bad. The President's party has lost Senate seats in 17 of the last 23 midterms. In 2018, Republicans lost

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two Senate seats, but kept control by just one seat. In 2010, Democrats lost six Senate seats. Now, let's talk about where we are right now. Republicans currently hold the House by just three seats. That's 218 to 215. If we lose just two seats, we lose the House. The Democrats take the gavel, they control what bills come to the floor, they launch investigations,

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They blocked Trump's agenda for his final two years. The Senate is safer. Republicans hold a 53 to 47 majority. We can afford to lose a few seats and still maintain control, but we're defending more seats than Democrats in 2026, which makes it harder. So translation, we're defending the narrowest house majority in modern history going into a midterm election where history says we'll lose 20 to 30 seats.

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Now that should terrify every conservative in America. So why is this pattern so consistent? Why does the president's party get hammered in midterms? Political scientists have studied this for decades and there are five main reasons. First, the thermostatic effect. This is what academics call thermostatic public opinion. When one party has power, voters instinctively pull the other direction.

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It's not about policy, it's about balance. Americans inherently distrust unified government. Even when they vote for it, they regret it by the midterms. Think about it like a thermostat. When the house gets too hot, the thermostat kicks in to cool it down. When one party has the presidency and Congress, voters feel like things are getting too hot, so they vote to cool it down by handing power to the opposition. It's political physics.

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action and reaction. Second, the coalition problem. Presidential elections bring out low propensity voters. These are people who don't normally vote but show up because they're excited about the presidential candidate. Trump's 2024 coalition was exactly this. Working class voters, young men, Latinos who don't usually vote but came out specifically for him. Midterm elections? These voters stay home.

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They came out to vote for Trump, not their local congressman. Without Trump on the ballot, they're back on the couch. Meanwhile, your hardcore base, the people who vote in every election, they show up. But the coalition that gave you the presidency is gone. Last Tuesday night proved this. Remember how Trump made huge gains with Latinos in 2024? Passaic County in New Jersey went Republican for the first time since 1992.

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Trump won it by three points. Last Tuesday, Cheryl won Latinos 2-1 and that county flipped back to Democrats by double digits. The Trump coalition voted for Trump. They didn't vote for Jack Cicciarelli and they are not going to vote in the 2026 midterms either unless we give them a reason to. Third, the enthusiasm gap. The out of power party is angry and motivated.

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The in-power party is complacent. Think about it. After you win, you think the work is done. You think you've already won. Why do you need to show up for some random house race? Meanwhile, the opposition is furious. They are organizing. They are fundraising. They are showing up at school board meetings and town halls. They are registering voters. They are building infrastructure. Right now, Democrats are angry. They lost in 2024.

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They are energized. They're organized. They smell blood. And too many Republicans. They're sitting back thinking 2024 was the end of the fight. It wasn't. It was the beginning. Fourth, the accountability factor. Midterms become a referendum on the sitting president. Everything that goes wrong gets blamed on the party in power. Inflation, gas prices, crime, foreign policy disasters.

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All of it lands on the president's party. Even things the president didn't cause, even things Congress blocked him from fixing, doesn't matter. Voters use midterms to send a message. Right now, Trump's approval is at 37%. That's the lowest of his second term. Exit polls last Tuesday showed 6 in 10 voters are angry or dissatisfied with how things are going. The government shutdown is the longest in history. Snap benefits were cut.

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It might be changing shortly. Health insurance premiums are spiking. Democrats are going to run on all of that. And voters are going to blame us. And lastly, fifth, death by a thousand disappointments. By year two, everyone is disappointed about something. Presidents make promises they can't keep. They compromise. They prioritize some issues over others. Moderates think you went too far. Your base thinks you didn't go far enough.

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Independents just want to register their discontent. Trump promised to end the shutdown immediately. He promised Mexico would pay for border security. They haven't. He promised tariffs would bring back manufacturing overnight. It's taking time. None of that means he's failing. It means governing is hard. But voters don't care about nuance. They care about whether their life is better. And if it's not, they vote against whoever is in charge.

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So we've established the pattern. 21 out of 23 times the president's party loses seats. But what about those two exceptions? What happened there? 1998, Bill Clinton gained five House seats. Republicans were pushing impeachment over Monica Lewinsky. The investigation had been going on for months. Republicans thought voters would be outraged at Clinton's behavior.

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They ran ads about it in the final weeks of the campaign. Voters hated it. They thought Republicans were wasting time on a sex scandal instead of doing their jobs. Clinton's approval rating was at 66%, the highest of his presidency. The economy was booming. Budget surplus, low unemployment, real wage growth. Exit polls showed voters opposed impeachment. They saw it as partisan overreach, and they punished the Republicans for

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Newt Gingrich, who had been predicting Republicans would gain 30 seats, resigned as speaker within days of the election. Republicans lost five House seats when they thought they'd win big. The lesson? Voters punish the party that looks obsessed with investigations instead of the kitchen table issues. 2002, George W. Bush gained eight House seats and two Senate seats.

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This is the only example in modern history of a first-term president gaining seats in both chambers. And it only happened because of September 11th. The terrorist attacks happened 14 months before the midterm elections. Bush's approval rating was at 63%. The country was unified. The rally around the flag effect was massive. National security dominated the campaign. Democrats who opposed the Iraq war authorization looked weak.

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Republicans ran on protecting America. It worked. But this was a once-in-a-generation crisis. It completely rewrote normal political dynamics. The lesson? It takes a massive national security event to override the midterm pattern. What do both exceptions share? Well, presidential approval above 60%. Trump's at 37%. Strong economic conditions or national unity moment.

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We have a government shutdown and economic anxiety. Opposition party made major tactical errors. Democrats minus the shutdown haven't made any major errors yet. In other words, none of these conditions exist for Republicans in 2025. We're not getting a 1998 or 2002 exception. We're getting a normal midterm and normal midterms are bad for the president's party. So you might be just sitting there listening to this and saying,

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So John, what do we do about it? Because sitting around waiting to lose isn't a strategy. First, we need to set realistic goals. The historical average is losing 28 House seats. Republicans lost 40 in 2018. With our three seat margin, losing even two seats means Democrats can take control. But if we can hold losses to single digits, say five to eight seats instead of the historical 28,

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That shows we're fighting gravity successfully even if we lose the majority. The real victory would be keeping losses under two seats and maintaining control, but that's gonna take everything we've got. Some recent good midterms show it's possible. JFK lost only four house seats in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Bush Senior lost only eight house seats in 1990. Obama lost only eight in 2012. What did they do?

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strong candidate recruitment, clear economic messages, a unified party. We can do the same. If Trump and the Republicans came and asked me how would I approach the midterms, these are the six strategies I would deploy. Strategy one, end this shutdown and own the economy. Every single day this shutdown continues gives Democrats ammunition. I know we are close, but we need to get this across the finish line and move the freak on.

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So we need to pass a clean CR, reopen the government, and pivot to delivering economic wins. Cut regulations, cut taxes, show wage growth, show manufacturing coming back. Make 2026 about, are you better off than you were in 2024? If voters feel economically secure, they're less likely to vote for change. Strategy two, recruit quality candidates now.

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Can't rely on Trump to drive turnout. He's not on the ballot. We need candidates who can win without him. Veterans, business owners, local heroes, people with their own brand. Start fundraising now. Build name recognition now. Don't wait until summer 2026 when Democrats have already defined them. Strategy three, expand the map. Don't just defend, go on offense.

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Democrats have vulnerable seats in districts Trump won. Force them to spend money defending their incumbents. Make them fight in blue territories. If we're only playing defense, we're going to lose. We need to put Democrats on their heels. Strategy four, message discipline. Every Republican needs to be saying the same thing. We're making your life more affordable. We're securing the border. We're bringing back common sense.

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Stop the infighting. Stop the drama. Stop the personal feuds. Democrats want chaos. Don't give it to them. Stay focused on kitchen table issues. Strategy five. Build the infrastructure. Early voting, ballot harvesting where it's legal, voter registration in red areas. We can't see these advantages to Democrats. They dominated early voting last Tuesday. They have better ground game.

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and we need to catch up. Target Trump's 2024 coalition specifically, working class voters, young men, Latinos. Build systems to get them to turn out even when Trump's not on the ballot. Strategy six, make it about them. Tie every Democrat to Zoran Mondani, the 34-year-old socialist who just won New York City.

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Your Democrat supports the same policies as the guy who wants to defund police and raise taxes. Make them defend the far-left positions. Force them to answer questions about men and women's sports, open borders, and defunding the police. Turn this into a choice, not a referendum. If it's just a referendum on Trump, we lose. If it's a choice between conservative common sense and socialist radicalism, we win.

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Let me be clear about what we're fighting for here. We're not going to gain seats. That's just not realistic. We're fighting to hold the line, to keep losses under two seats, to hold the House majority by any margin possible. If we do that, that is a massive win. That means Trump can still pass legislation. That means we can control the legislative agenda.

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That means we can hold the line on conservative principles for two more years until 2028. The Senate math actually favors us. Democrats are defending 23 seats. We're only defending 10. Several Democrat senators are actually in red states. We could actually gain Senate seats while losing a House seat or two, but only if we execute. The next 12 months will determine whether we hold the line or

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hand control back to the Democrats. Whether we keep Trump's agenda alive or spend his final two years watching Democrat investigations instead of conservative victories. Patriots, the pendulum is swinging. That's not opinion. That's physics. Last Tuesday night proved the pattern is real. Virginia flipped. New Jersey went blue by double digits. A socialist won New York City with over a million votes.

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The Democrats aren't celebrating because they're better. They are celebrating because they understand political gravity. And right now, gravity is pulling against us. But gravity can be fought. It takes thrust. It takes fuel. It takes precision. We have 12 months. 12 months to deliver economic wins. 12 months to recruit candidates who can win without Trump on the ballot. 12 months to build the infrastructure Democrats already have.

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12 months to make this about their socialist agenda instead of our drama. History says we lose 28 seats. Our job is to lose zero or one at most. Keep the house. Keep the agenda alive. Keep fighting. The Democrats think 2026 is their year. They think the pendulum guarantees them victory. They think we're going to sit back and let it happen. They are wrong.

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Share this episode with every conservative who thinks last Tuesday was the end. It wasn't. It's now the beginning. Find us at O'Connor's right stand and follow me on X at O'Connor podcasts. Deep dives every Tuesday and Thursday. Quick strike podcasts every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Until next time, patriots, stay strong, stay informed, and stay unapologetically American. This is John O'Connor, signing off.