Opinion | U.S. Voters Face a Midterm Election About Nothing
The parties are more divided than ever, but neither one offers a serious legislative agenda.
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This might be an indelicate time to ask but here goes: Is this midterm election about anything?
It isn’t a question of whether the election will be consequential, because every election is in one way or another. Which party wins in November will matter a great deal to whether President Trump faces another impeachment, for instance. This election also may send important signals to both parties about how to position themselves for the coming post-Trump era.
Beyond that, however, it’s oddly difficult to say what either party would do with control of Congress. On the Republican side, no one seems to be proposing major fiscal legislation, whether further tax reforms or spending cuts. Mr. Trump’s tariffs are the most important and controversial economic policy going at the moment, but there’s no talk of creating sturdier legislation to allow him to implement them—or to take away some of the president’s authority in light of the tariffs’ unpopularity.
Republicans have the luxury of a few accomplishments to run on, most notably last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which forestalled crippling tax increases and made some modest pro-growth improvements around the edges. But so far they’re failing to offer a coherent answer to voters’ concerns about affordability. The hope instead appears to be that the Democrats will be so off-putting on cultural issues that voters will “come home” to Republicans.
It’s an oddly passive campaign. Part of the blame lies with Mr. Trump, whose mercurial personality and lack of interest in policy details make it difficult for Republicans to pick a campaign agenda and stick to it. Part of it is related to the messy internal feuds already under way concerning what the party should stand for after Mr. Trump leaves office. Either way, the GOP is leaving the field open.
Republicans are lucky Democrats aren’t taking advantage. Successful campaigns by nonincumbent parties often feature an identifiable policy agenda to persuade voters to take the chance on something new. In 1994 it was Republicans’ Contract With America; in 2018 Democrats campaigned for “saving” the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) as much as they campaigned against Mr. Trump. What would a Democratic policy agenda be this cycle?
They can’t agree on core components of a fiscal platform, as demonstrated by emerging splits on wealth taxation. They can’t agree on healthcare, as the party divides over the idea of Medicare for All. They can unite on cultural issues such as unfettered immigration and transgender controversies because their donor and activist class enforces conformity. But they’re uniting on the wrong side of a majority of voters.
The only people offering a clear agenda are candidates affiliated with the Democratic Socialists of America, but understand the purpose of that platform. Presumably they’re smart enough to understand they won’t be able to implement many or any of their ideas in the event of a broader Democratic victory in November. They’re playing a long game to wrest control of the Democratic Party over multiple election cycles. Until then, expect them to talk a lot but legislate very little.
This leaves Americans in November the task of electing a Congress without having any idea what that Congress might actually do. What brought us to this nonsensical place?
We’re reaching the culmination of an era in which lawmakers collectively decided they care about priorities other than lawmaking. Decades ago they started outsourcing to executive-branch agencies the task of nitty-gritty legislating. More recently, the abandonment of a regular budget procedure in favor of ad hoc, down-to-the-wire deals, has centralized Congress’s most important job with the leaders who concoct those agreements.
This means there’s precious little for a typical lawmaker to do anymore. The lack of any daily responsibility to legislate or negotiate leaves them with ample opportunity and motive to turn each congressional seat into its own little bully pulpit on social media. And to be fair to them, voters perversely reward this kind of behavior.
The telling exception to our current content-free midterm is the Senate’s power to confirm presidential nominations—a duty that must be performed by each senator individually. It isn’t an accident that debates about confirmations past and future play an ever more prominent role in Senate campaigns on both sides. It sometimes feels like the only thing they do.
This is profoundly unhealthy for our society. If lawmakers aren’t required to make policy choices, then neither will voters be. Perhaps it’s too much to expect a midterm campaign about, say, substantive Social Security reforms. But we’re reaching the other extreme, in which voters are able to make choices based solely on vibes without having to consider policy trade-offs.
The collision of those vibes with economic and political reality invariably produces a particularly ugly form of disappointment. The rise of the DSA is one result but it won’t be the only one.
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Appeared in the August 7, 2026, print edition as 'U.S. Voters Face a Midterm Election About Nothing'.
Joseph C. Sternberg is a member of the Journal's editorial board and the Political Economics columnist. He joined the Journal in 2006 as an editorial writer in Hong Kong, where he also edited the Business Asia column. He is author of "The Theft of a Decade: How the Baby Boomers Stole the Millennials' Economic Future," examining the consequences of the Great Recession.
Previously he worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C. Raised in Vermont, Mr. Sternberg is a graduate of The College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va.
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