As a registered voter in California, I’ve been watching the slowly developing 2026 gubernatorial race in which no Democrat seems to be breaking out of the bipartisan pack. I wrote an early assessment for New York:

The last three governors of California were all legendary, larger-than-life political figures. Arnold Schwarzenegger (2003–’11) was a huge Hollywood and pop-culture celebrity before he entered politics in a recall election that ejected his predecessor Gray Davis. He remains the last Republican to be elected as governor or U.S. senator in the Golden State. Jerry Brown (2011-2019) served in his second two-term gubernatorial stretch, having first been elected to the office way back in 1974 (he also ran for president three times). And the current and outgoing California governor, Gavin Newsom (2019-present), was San Francisco mayor and two-term lieutenant governor before stepping up to the top job in Sacramento. He, too, has dominated California politics in a big way.

The contest to choose the 41st governor of California currently has ten candidates — eight Democrats and two Republicans — and not that many voters could identify them in a line-up. Two Democratic politicians who did have some name ID and who might have dominated the field have given the race a pass. That would be former U.S. senator, vice president, and presidential nominee Kamala Harris, who may instead run for president again in 2028 (very likely against Newsom); and her successor in the Senate, Alex Padilla, who gained a lot of attention when he was wrestled to the ground and handcuffed by Secret Service agents for trying to ask Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem a question at a press conference.

With those big fish out of the tank, the remaining field is composed of candidates who are far from unknown, but are still small fry, relatively speaking. A well-known former Democratic member of the U.S. House, Katie Porter  (who ran for the Senate in 2024) and current House member Eric Swalwell (who very briefly ran for president in 2020), are running. One current Democratic statewide office-holder, Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Thurmond, is making a bid. So is former state comptroller Betty Yee, former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, former Biden administration HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra, and former state assembly majority leader Ian Calderon. The most recent Democrat to enter the race was hedge fund billionaire and liberal activist Tom Steyer (who ran a presidential campaign briefly more successful than Swalwell’s in 2020).

Alongside these eight Democrats are two Republicans: Fox News gabber and former British Tory political operative Steve Hilton, and current Riverside County (east of L.A.) sheriff Chad Bianco.

Polls consistently show these ten candidates struggling to break out of the pack. Early on, Porter, building on name ID from her unsuccessful 2024 Senate race, had some buzz, but she damaged herself by pitching a temper tantrum during a media interview that wasn’t going her way. Since then it’s become a sluggish race between snails. The latest public poll, from Emerson, released in early December, shows Bianco at 13 percent, Hilton and Swalwell at 12 percent, Porter at 11 percent, Villaraigosa at 5 percent, and Steyer and Becerra at 4 percent. The remaining candidates combine for 7 percent, and there’s an impressive 31 percent who are undecided or don’t know who these people are. Everyone but Porter has name ID under 50 percent, and hers isn’t all that positive. You may think that’s because it’s so very early in the contest, but in fact, the primary is on June 2, just over six months away.

That primary, by the way, is part of California’s non-partisan top two system in which the first- and second-place finishers, regardless of party, proceed to the general election. And the early polling has created a bit of a freak-out among Democrats bewailing their candidates’ lack of star power, as Politico noted:

“California Democrats have a math problem: They’ve added so many candidates in the race to succeed Gavin Newsom that two Republicans could end up winning the state’s quirky ‘jungle primary,’ shutting the Democrats out.

“A Democratic wipeout is still unlikely. But the prospect of a humiliating pile-up, with no clear powerbroker to act as traffic cop, has put the state’s political class increasingly on edge with each new entrant into the field.”

Even though the race should intensify considerably as we get deeper into 2026, the candidate filing deadline isn’t until March. So the power vacuum in the gubernatorial field could yet attract a late entry from some celebrity (Hollywood is chock full of them) or insanely rich self-funder (one such bag of money, Los Angeles developer Rick Caruso, could run for governor if he doesn’t run again for L.A. mayor). Or more Lilliputs could join the race hoping that lightning strikes (e.g., state Attorney General Rob Bonta).

If the field remains as it is, keep an eye on Steyer, whose vast wealth could buy him the name ID he needs. Ideological divisions and factional alignments could also be key. Thurmond is touting his support for a single-payer health care system and has the endorsement by California’s powerful teachers unions. Villaraigosa (who ran unsuccessfully for governor in 2018) has a well-worn reputation as a Democratic “moderate.” Porter has scars from her battles with the crypto industry, which savaged her with negative ads in 2024, while Calderon has become a crypto bro ally. Becerra can run on his legal battles with the first Trump administration (when he served as California attorney general) and Swalwell has been trading insults with Trump for years. Meanwhile the two Republicans in the race can be expected to compete for a Trump endorsement (Hilton is a long-time Trump backer on Fox News, while Bianco is a former Oath Keeper).

Ethnic and geographical rivalries could matter too. Becerra, Calderon, and Villaraigosa are Latino; Yee is Asian-American; Thurmond is Black. Calderon, Porter, and Villaraigosa are from the greater Los Angeles area; Steyer, Swallwell, Thurmond, and Yee are from the San Francisco Bay area; and Becerra is from Sacramento. Schwarzenegger was the last California governor from Southern California, but he also represented the last gasp of truly moderate Republicanism.

While the field could shrink or expand even more before the filing deadline, the next governor of California probably won’t enter office with anything like the street cred and national prominence of the other 21st century chief executives, who often acted as though the state is an independent principality with its own foreign and domestic policies. Newsom will also leave some chronic fiscal problems, a perpetually fractious legislature, all sorts of natural resources and environmental challenges, and a housing “affordability” crisis that has spurred a national debate over a so-called “abundance” agenda prioritizing regulatory streamlining to speed up housing and other construction. It’s a lot, but whoever wins will become a lot more famous, fast.

As part of my usual efforts to make sense of each political year, I took a look at Trump’s job approval numbers for the year at New York, and it wasn’t hard to find a trend:

While Donald Trump’s claims of a landslide victory and a huge mandate in 2024 were always ridiculous, he did begin his second term with some of the highest job-approval ratings he’s ever had as president. Per Gallup, he never hit 50 percent job approval during his first term, but Silver Bulletin’s refined polling averages showed him at 51.6 percent the day after his second inauguration. With a disapproval rating of 40 percent, that gave him a double-digit positive net approval rating of 11.6 percent. His net approval stayed positive until early March, going underwater on March 12 and staying there the rest of the year.

Trump’s popularity took a big plunge in April around the time he imposed his “Liberation Day” tariffs. It recovered modestly through June and then began a steady decline that reached its nadir around Thanksgiving, when his net approval hit minus-15 percent (41.2 percent approval, 56.2 percent disapproval). He has seen a slight improvement in the month since, but as of December 23, his job-approval average at Silver Bulletin stands at 42.1 percent with disapproval at 54.3 percent.

At this point in 2017 during Trump’s first term, Gallup had his job approval at 36 percent, precisely where Gallup shows him today. On this date in 2021, Joe Biden’s job-approval rating per Gallup was at 43 percent. The only post–World War II president to match Trump’s current poor job approval at this point in his presidency was Trump in his first term.

Obviously, Trump has always had a polarizing effect on Americans. But Silver Bulletin’s tracking of strong approval versus strong disapproval shows the latter consistently ahead in much of 2025, matching the general erosion of Trump’s popularity. At present, 25.2 percent of Americans strongly approve of his job performance, and 44.1 percent strongly disapprove.

Since June, Trump has been underwater in assessments of his job performance on all four major issues tracked by Silver Bulletin’s polling averages. His net approval is currently at minus-8.3 percent on immigration, minus-20.5 percent on trade, minus-21.3 percent on the economy, and minus-28.8 percent on inflation.

Unsurprisingly, specific polling outlets have different takes on Trump’s popularity. But overall, the downward 2025 trend shows up nearly everywhere. Rasmussen Reports (long a Trump favorite) has a daily tracking of presidential job approval that showed his net approval as positive or roughly neutral for two-thirds of the year with a decided downward swing in autumn. As of December 23, Rasmussen has the president’s job approval at 44 percent positive and 54 percent negative. Raz also measures strong approval versus strong disapproval, currently placing the former at 29 percent and the latter at 44 percent. Perhaps a more alarming trend is evident in the highly reputed AtlasIntel findings, which had Trump’s net job approval at minus-5 percent as recently as September but shows him at minus-20 percent in mid-December. One traditionally pro-GOP pollster, InsiderAdvantage, has shown Trump’s net job approval as positive all year long. More typical has been Fox News, which placed the president’s net job approval at single-digit negative levels for most of 2025 but then showed it lurching downward to minus-17 percent in mid-November and minus-12 percent in mid-December.

Tracking presidential job approval by party affiliation is difficult due to differences in ways of determining such affiliation. But Gallup’s monthly polling is typical in showing Trump only modestly losing ground with self-identified Republicans over 2025. He was at 91 percent during Inauguration Week and still at 89 percent in December, though there was a dip to 84 percent in November. But among self-identified independents, Trump’s approval rating was at 46 percent during Inauguration Week and is at 25 percent in December.

How will Trump’s loss of popularity affect the 2026 midterm elections? It won’t help, obviously, if he continues to lose ground. Gallup showed his 2018 job-approval rating at 39 percent in January and 40 percent in November, when his party lost 41 House seats. But the usual low-turnout midterm electorate is slightly less aligned with overall public opinion than the high-turnout presidential electorate. Another factor is that while Trump has been and remains unpopular, the Democratic Party’s approval ratings aren’t great either (though typically midterms are referenda on the president’s party more than choices between competing parties).

The polling number that most corresponds to midterm vote intentions is the so-called generic congressional ballot, which simply asks respondents which party they want to control the U.S. House of Representatives. According to RealClearPolitics’ polling averages, Democrats currently lead on the generic ballot by 3.7 percent. Decision Desk HQ’s averages put the Democratic advantage at 5.3 percent. The two parties were very nearly tied on the generic ballot prior to the 2024 election, in which Republicans eked out the fragile House majority they still have today.

Unexpected things could happen that might change the currently strong odds that Democrats will at least flip the House and make gains in the Senate. With gerrymandering still underway, we don’t even know exactly what the landscape will look like. But Trump is more likely to be a drag on his party than a boon based on everything we know about public attitudes toward him over time. He’s just not a very popular politician, and those who love him fiercely get just one vote.

In understanding how Republicans will deal with the overriding issue of the 2026 midterms, “affordability,” it helps to know their ideological habits, as I discussed at New York:

One of the odder moments in Donald Trump’s big Oval Office “affordability” speech on December 17 was toward the end, when he asserted that mass deportation of immigrants would greatly improve the economy. “We are now seeing reverse migration as migrants go back home, leaving more housing and more jobs for Americans.” The idea seemed to be that a major instrument of the administration’s economic strategy was those masked ICE and Border Patrol agents getting rid of the foreigners draining our resources.

This is a theme that Trump may have borrowed from his vice-president, as Politico’s Ian Ward explains after looking at some of J.D. Vance’s recent speeches:

“At an event in Allentown, Pa. this week, Vance argued that the rise in housing and rental costs — an issue that’s increasingly rankling Republican voters — is being driven primarily by illegal immigration. ‘It’s simple economics. If you have fewer people, fewer illegal aliens trying to buy homes, that means American citizens are going to finally be able to afford a home again,’ the vice president said.

“He has taken the same approach to the increasingly thorny issue of healthcare, arguing during a White House press briefing in October that lengthy wait times at hospital emergency rooms are being caused by ‘illegal aliens’ who ‘get healthcare benefits at hospitals paid for by American citizens.’ Ditto for the decline of blue-collar wages, which Vance has recently attributed to ‘the Democrat model’  of ‘import[ing] low-wage immigrants.’ He’s even suggested that the rise of antisemitism — an issue that has bitterly divided the right in recent months — is being caused by the influx of foreign-born people who bring high levels of ‘ethnic grievance’ with them.”

Offering a simple, uniform explanation for complicated problems the Trump administration is visibly struggling to address is a nice rhetorical device for Vance. But it has two other advantages. First, Team Trump has reason to believe immigration policy remains its strongest issue. According to Silver Bulletin’s polling averages for Trump’s job-approval ratings on handling specific issues, he’s not doing that well on much of anything, but immigration is a relative bright spot. His net approval on immigration policy is at minus-7.3 percent, compared to minus-17.1 percent on trade policy, minus-17.9 percent on the economy, and minus-27.6 percent on inflation. Since there’s zero question in anyone’s mind that the administration is working hard to shut down the border and deport undocumented immigrants, claiming this will help address economic problems makes more sense than talking about Trump policies that are actively unpopular, like his love for tariffs and his cluelessness about health care.

Second, as Ward emphasizes, treating deportation of immigrants as the key to multiple problems shifts attention from policy disputes that divide Republicans and Trump’s MAGA base to an issue on which they enthusiastically agree:

“[I]t’s starting to look like part of an emerging strategy for coalitional management. Confronted with an issue that divides MAGA, Vance responds by reminding Republicans of what unites them: namely, support for immigration restriction.”

Divisions on economic policy between “populists” and Trump’s billionaire backers on Wall Street and in Silicon Valley are a growing problem for Republicans. Meanwhile, conservative allegations of antisemitism against America First zealots have split Vance’s own personal base, as evidenced by tensions between his close friends Tucker Carlson and the Christian Zionists at Turning Point USA. All these warring tribes can agree that getting rid of immigrants is a righteous task. And this is especially important to Vance, who is covering Trump’s flanks as vice-presidents traditionally do, and who also needs a strong MAGA coalition backing him if he wants to step up to the presidency in 2028. J.D. Vance is never going to have a cult of personality like Trump’s. But he can become a unity figure in the party and movement he may someday lead, as Ward observes:

“Vance seems to be betting that opposition to immigration remains the one stance that can unite a movement that is otherwise divided over economics, foreign policy, tech and AI policy, healthcare, the Epstein disclosures and more. Linking these more divisive issues back to immigration offers one strategy for smoothing over the fault lines.”

So get used to regular celebrations of mass deportation as the key to ensuring American Greatness.

Thought I’d add some perspective to discussions about the stakes and odds of the 2026 midterms, and did so at New York.

With all the signs of a Democratic comeback arising from 2025’s off-year elections, there’s understandably some excitement among Democrats about a possible “wave” election next year that would dislodge the GOP trifecta that allowed Donald Trump to enact a legislative agenda this year without any minority-party input or support. The obvious benchmark for an anti-Trump wave is the 2018 midterms, which gave Democrats net gains of 41 U.S. House seats and a 17-seat majority in that chamber.

This week, Politico published a granular analysis of the 2026 House landscape that should curb any excess Democratic enthusiasm. It suggests the 2026 midterms are unlikely to produce anything like the 2018 wave. The landscape of winnable Republican seats is much narrower than in the first Trump midterms, for two basic reasons: (1) two rounds of gerrymandering have reduced the number of competitive districts, and (2) there’s a higher starting point of Democratic House seats. Or as Politico puts it:

“Partisan redistricting — even before this year — has allowed both parties to draw mostly safe seats, dropping the number of competitive districts that are likely to flip. And while the battlefield is smaller, Democrats also already own more of it than they did going into 2018. The very reason Democrats hardly need a blue wave to take back the House this time is that their congressional candidates largely outperformed Kamala Harris in last year’s elections.”

Putting these factors together with the underlying gradual increase in partisan polarization (which reduces split-ticket opportunities), there’s a lot less low-hanging fruit for Democrats than there was in 2018:

“In [2018], Democrats won roughly 90 percent of GOP-held House districts that had either been won by Clinton or that Trump had won by less than 5 points based on two-party vote share.

“And there were a lot of those seats. Republicans were defending 25 districts that Clinton had won two years prior. Next year, they only have three won by Harris. The number of districts Trump won by less than 5 points is similar over the two cycles.

“But outside that competitive zone, flipping seats got a lot harder in 2018: Democrats only picked up four of 18 seats that Trump had won by between 5 and 10 points.

“Next year, Democrats would have to win at least eight seats that Trump won by more than 5 points in 2024, in addition to sweeping every single highly competitive seat to come away with 235 seats as they did in 2018.”

To look at the landscape from a slightly different angle, there are 33 House districts that Democrats won by five points or less in 2024 but only 14 such Republican seats. It would take a big wave to reach beyond those opportunities.

Taking into account the current anti-Trump trend in public opinion and the historical tendency for the president’s party to lose seats, the authoritative Cook Political Report currently shows 18 Democratic-held seats and 17 Republican-held seats at stake in competitive races. Even assuming the landscape continues to shift in the direction of Democrats, that doesn’t provide much of a beachhead for a big wave. On top of that, gerrymandering is still underway, and while Republican gains won’t match Trump’s initial hopes of waveproofing the GOP’s House majority, they could perhaps pick up another few net seats if things go their way in Florida.

The good news for Democrats is they really don’t need to pick up 41 House seats to make 2026 a big victory. A gain of a mere three net seats (as compared to 24 in 2018) would flip control of the House, and that could have a huge impact on the power dynamics of Washington. Without trifecta control of Congress, Republicans could no longer enact filibusterproof budget-reconciliation bills like the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. They’d lose control of the House committees that are busily digging into the alleged scandals of the Joe Biden administration; instead, these committees would be conducting politically salient investigations of misconduct and extremist policies in the second Trump administration. And given the extreme polarization in Congress, Democrats wouldn’t need much of a majority of their own to thwart Trump’s wishes. Indeed, a very small House majority might provide a good excuse for Democrats to turn down politically dubious presidential impeachment measures, like those Democrats passed in 2019 that were doomed in the Senate.

Dating back to the Great Depression, there have been only three midterm elections (1962, 1998, and 2002) in which the party opposing the president failed to win at least three net House seats, the Democratic target next year. In all three of those years, the president’s job-approval rating (per Gallup) was above 60 percent when voters voted. Trump’s latest job-approval rating from Gallup was 36 percent, and over two terms it has never even once topped 50 percent. So however small the target Democrats must hit in 2026 to bust up Trump’s trifecta, they’re very likely to hit it.

After realizing how much longer Trump’s second term in office would last, I took a long and sober look at New York at what might happen, and what might restrain Trump from doing his worst:

Donald Trump has a flexible attitude toward truth and facts, typically embracing whatever version of reality that suits his purposes. His latest rally speech in Pennsylvania was something of a “greatest hits” display of fact-checker challenges on a wide range of issues. But he said one thing that no one should doubt or deny: “You know what? We have three years and two months to go. Do you know what that is in Trump Time? An eternity.”

So what will America look like after three more years of this barrage? As always, the administration’s intentions are opaque. But there are several outside variables that will dramatically shape how much Trump is able to do by the end of his time in office (assuming he actually leaves as scheduled on January 20, 2029). Here are the factors that will decide the outcome of this three-year “eternity.”

The midterms could shift the balance of power

One huge variable is the outcome of the 2026 midterm elections. If history and current polling are any indication, Democrats are very likely to gain control of the U.S. House and bust up the partisan trifecta that has made so much of Trump 2.0’s accomplishments (for good or ill) possible. With a Democratic House, there will be no more Big Beautiful Bills whipped through Congress on party-line votes reconfiguring the federal budget and tax code and remaking the shape and impact of the federal government. A hostile House would also bedevil the administration with constant investigations of its loosey-goosey attitude toward obeying legal limits on its powers, and its regular habits of self-dealing, cronyism, and apparent corruption. The last two years of the Trump presidency would be characterized by even greater end runs of Congress, and in Congress, by endless partisan rhetorical warfare (as opposed to actual legislation).

It’s less likely that Democrats will flip control of the Senate in 2026, but were that to happen, Trump would struggle to get his appointees confirmed (though many could operate in an “acting” capacity). We’d likely see constant clashes between the executive and legislative branches.

Conversely, if Republicans hold onto both congressional chambers, then all bets are off. Trump 2.0 would roll through its final two years with the president’s more audacious legislative goals very much in sight and limited only by how much risk Republicans want to take in 2028. You could see repeated Big Beautiful Bill packages aiming at big initiatives like replacing income taxes with tariffs or consumption taxes; a complete return to fossil fuels as the preferred energy source; a total repeal and replacement of Obamacare and decimation of Medicaid; a fundamental restructuring of immigration laws; and radical limits on voting rights. Almost everything could be on the table as long as Republicans remain in control and in harness with Trump. And with his presidency nearing its end, you could also see Trump tripling down on demands that Republicans kill or erode the filibuster, which could make more audacious legislative gains possible.

The Supreme Court could curb or enable Trump

The U.S. Supreme Court will also have a big impact on how much Trump can do between now and the end of his second term. Big upcoming decisions on his power to impose tariffs will determine the extent to which he can make these deals the centerpiece of his foreign-policy strategy and execute a protectionist (or, if you like, mercantilist) economic strategy for the country. Other decisions on his power to deport immigrants and on the nature and permanence of citizenship will heavily shape the size and speed of his mass-deportation program. The Supreme Court will soon also either obstruct or permit use of National Guard and military units in routine law-enforcement chores and/or to impose administration policies on states or cities. And the Supreme Court’s decisions on myriad conflicts between the Trump administration and the states could determine whether, for example, the 47th president can sweep away any regulation of AI that his tech-bro friends oppose.

A separate line of Supreme Court decisions will determine Trump’s power over the executive branch — most obviously over independent agencies like the FTC and the Fed, but also over millions of federal employees who could lose both civil-service protections and collective-bargaining opportunities.

The economy and foreign war could be wild cards

Even a president as willful as Trump is constrained by objective reality. His economic policies make instability, hyperinflation, and even a 2008-style Great Recession entirely possible. If that happens, it could both erode his already shaky public support but also encourage him to assert even greater “emergency” powers than he’s already claimed.

Trump’s impulsive national-security instincts and innate militarism could also lead to one of those terrible wars he swears he is determined to avoid. It’s worth remembering that the last Republican president was entirely undone during his second term by economic dislocations and a failed war.

America could get the full MAGA makeover

Let’s say Trump has the power to do what he wants between now and the end of his second term. What might America look like if he fully succeeds, particularly if his policies are either emulated by state and local Republicans or imposed nationally by Washington?

• A country of millions fewer immigrants, with immigrant-sensitive industries like agriculture, health care, and other services struggling.
• A more regressive system of revenues for financing steadily shrinking public services.
• A fully shredded social-safety net feeding steadily increasing disparities in income and wealth between rich and poor, and old and young, Americans.
• Cities where armed military presence has become routine, particularly during anti-administration protests or prior to key elections.
• Elections conducted solely on Election Day in person, with strict ID requirements and armed election monitors, likely on the scene during vote counting as well.
• A new “deep state” of MAGA-vetted federal employees devoted to carrying out the 47th president’s policies even after he’s long gone.
• A world beset by accelerated climate-change symptoms, particularly violent weather and widespread natural disasters, and a country with no national infrastructure for preventing or mitigating the damage.
• An economy where AI is constantly promoted as a solution to the very problems it creates.
• A world beset by accelerated climate-change symptoms, particularly violent weather and widespread natural disasters, and a country with no national infrastructure for preventing or mitigating the damage.
• A scientific and health-care research apparatus driven by conspiracy theories and cultural fads.
• A public-education system hollowed out by private-school subsidies and ideological curriculum mandates.
• And most of all: a debased level of political discourse resembling MMA trash talk more than anything the country has experienced before.

Some of these likely effects from Trump 2.0 are reversible, but only after much time and effort, and against resistance from the MAGA movement he will leave as his most enduring legacy.

And if Trump bequeaths the presidency to a successor (either a political heir like J.D. Vance or a biological heir like Don Jr.), then what American could look like by 2032 or 2036 is beyond my powers of imagination.