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By Shane Croucher
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Washington is taking a deep breath. But not the long exhale of relief that, for both winners and losers alike, ends a campaign; more like the one a rider takes before the vertical drop on a roller coaster.
For months, the hardest-working phrase in American government has been "after the midterms."
This is when President Donald Trump has said the war with Iran will finally be resolved. It’s when Congress will decide how to pay for it. It’s when a Supreme Court seat may open, and when Cabinet careers will be judged.
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Tuesday’s vote won’t end the suspense. It ends the excuse.
Conventional wisdom is a midterm rebuke of the kind that Trump and his Republicans are apparently facing leads to two years of stalemate under a lame-duck president. And so the Trump era ends with a weak quack.
But the more immediate effect is the opposite. Whatever voters decide, the deferred decisions of 2026 arrive at once—in the frantic last two months before the new Congress is sworn in on January 3. It’s a time to finish unfinished business in a rapidly closing window.
Iran will probably come before anything else. Trump promised no new attacks before Election Day, though U.S. forces launched what officials called defensive strikes on Monday.
The same day, Trump said he was in no hurry to decide whether to restart full-scale hostilities, with talks underway through Qatari mediators and Benjamin Netanyahu pressing for a new air campaign. Trump is weighing options, including a drastic escalation.
Whichever way the president goes, the election stops being a reason to wait.
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Congress has its own to-do pile. Government funding expires December 11, about four working weeks after lawmakers return on November 9. Money for the Iran war was pushed into the same window.
Republicans are weighing a year-end debt-limit increase so a Democratic House cannot use the next borrowing deadline as leverage. Without Democratic votes, both need a party-line budget bill. If Democrats win the House, there is no January to pass one.
Not that Trump has let Congress get in the way of much so far, preferring to push executive authority to its outer limits. Faced with a Democratic House or Senate, or both, Trump is likely to revert to the executive action bonanza of the early months of his second term.
More executive action, more fractious disputes over the separation of powers, more lawsuits. More chaos and uncertainty.
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Next, personnel is perhaps the oldest post-midterm ritual. George W. Bush announced Donald Rumsfeld’s exit from his cabinet the day after Republicans lost the House in 2006.
On the eve of the 2018 vote, Trump told reporters: "Administrations make changes, usually after midterms…I think it's very customary." Two days later, then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions was gone.
This time around, Trump’s cabinet secretaries may leave rather than face Democratic investigations during their tenure. There are also constant questions about Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s future.
Trump hasn’t signaled changes so far. But a losing president looking for someone to blame might lash out at those around him, from White House aides through to his cabinet.
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Party leaders are exposed, too. Trump has declined to endorse Senate Majority Leader John Thune for another term. Several Democratic Senate candidates won’t commit to backing Chuck Schumer.
Then 2028 begins. Vice President JD Vance and Democratic California Governor Gavin Newsom have both said they will weigh runs after the midterms. They aren’t alone.
A rout of the incumbents would also likely result in a fight over the count, given Trump’s history on the subject of "election integrity." After 2020, Trump and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits that went nowhere. His supporters also stormed the U.S. Capitol.
This time, the litigation began before the vote, over ballots in California and certification in Alaska, and so far the courts have mostly said no. After, there is the prospect of state officials who administer elections contesting results they don’t like.
Activists plan mass protests if the Trump administration interferes in any elections. The president repeatedly framed his "SAVE America" voting reform bill as the only means of making the elections, in his eyes, legitimate.
It remains a bill. But Trump has laid the rhetorical ground for challenging the veracity of the results, even if unmerited by the facts. The memory of January 6 hangs over every election since.
But nor would a majority Democratic House bring calm to Trump’s Washington. Divided government stalls bills, not the politics. It may mean yet another round of impeachment for Trump—and perhaps not him alone this time. Hegseth is on notice.
It almost certainly means subpoenas, shutdown standoffs, and veto fights, with policy migrating to executive orders and courtrooms. The lame duck after Trump’s last midterm defeat ended in a 35-day shutdown that ran well into the new Democratic majority’s term.
Then there’s the Trump-stacked conservative majority Supreme Court. Conservative Justice Samuel Alito, 76, told Bloomberg Law he intends to "stick around through this term," which runs to June 2027, even if Democrats win the Senate.
That is firm, but note the wording. A retirement announced in November and effective next summer, a scenario some court-watchers have raised, would honor the letter of that promise while letting a Republican Senate confirm a successor before January 3.
It is Justice Stephen Breyer’s 2022 route, but on a lame-duck clock—highly unorthodox and probably explosive. It also turns on the Senate, not the House. Decision Desk HQ gives Democrats a 65 percent chance of winning it.
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Of course, Washington’s favorite move is the punt. Congress could pass another stopgap into the new year. Iran talks may grind on, with many inside the administration skeptical of resuming combat. Alito could do exactly what he says.
Trump may keep his current cabinet lineup, and he may even accept an overwhelming result against him. His personal polling numbers are hardly a ringing endorsement he can hold up as a sign that something is amiss in the voting.
What’s more, the well of Trump enthusiasm is running drier each year. Even some within MAGA are tired of war and $4 gasoline. Let’s not even get into the Jeffrey Epstein debacle.
Maybe this will be a huge polling miss, and Republicans will emerge less bruised than the numbers imply. The deep breath would be a short sigh before business as usual, more or less, carries on.
But we wouldn’t bet on it in any prediction markets. Nobody takes a breath that deep for nothing. Prepare for an exhale on November 4 that unleashes the winds of chaos for months to come.
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