After the Midterms, America's Pessimists Hold the Key to 2028

The midterms, and the presidential election of 2028, will be shaped by splintering and fracturing on both sides: neither the Republicans nor the Democrats can rely on a solid base any longer. A blue wave is expected, yet a red undercurrent remains strong, with Democrats benefiting mainly from Donald Trump's disapproval ratings. Polling shows that the Democrats are not getting more popular, which makes this an "unpopularity election". At the same time, the president is now broadly viewed as part of the establishment, saddling his administration with the disadvantage of incumbency.

President Donald Trump, despite all of his blunders, has an amazing instinct for the mood of the electorate. He is responsible for a number of innovations that have changed American politics. He identified and turned out many first-time voters who had never engaged in the political process, and he branded himself and the Republican Party as the voice of the working class, winning over sizeable segments of the blue-collar vote. In the last two presidential elections, he converted a record number of Latino voters into Republican voters.

The midterm elections in 2026 and the next presidential election in 2028 are, among other things, a test of how many of these political innovations will become permanent gains for the Republican Party. The Republican-Latino coalition is already showing cracks, with Latinos moving back towards the Democrats, primarily out of anger over how the economy and immigration have been handled.

The Democrats will probably take the House and the Senate in November, as voters vent their anger over Trump's war in Iran and continually rising costs. A Democratic victory is not certain: there is always the potential for a polling error that underestimates Republican turnout, fears of possible election interference, and the stark reality of Democrats running up against gerrymandering and massive sums of Republican dark money. Underpinning all analyses of the 2026 midterms is the sleeping giant of a radically different electorate: Trump has shaped politics, and the electorate has reshaped itself around and in response to him.

The changes have been particularly stark among blue-collar voters. As a previously Democratic and social democratic constituency, these voters warrant close attention: they tend to act as a bellwether for the attitudes of the broader American public. According to a recent survey by the Friedrich Ebert Foundation (FES), politicians in general are incredibly unpopular among blue-collar voters, with a net favorability rating of minus 55, far worse than that of corporate CEOs (minus 32) or billionaires (minus 41).

People firmly believe that politicians no longer work in their interest. As a result, the 2026 midterms will be a distrust election, and 2028 will be an alienation election. The long, painful divorce between politicians and the American electorate has reached its final stage. Going forward, five groups of blue-collar voters, identified from the survey results, will play a decisive role in 2026 and 2028, and will determine the future of American politics.

The Blue-Collar Vote Splits Five Ways

As everything shifts around them, traditional liberals, who make up 21 percent of the blue-collar voters surveyed, remain the bedrock of the Democratic Party, and will remain solidly blue voters in the midterm elections and in 2028. They hold traditionally liberal views, are the most educated, and are demographically diverse and majority women. This group is the least likely to splinter going forward and makes up the traditional Democratic base on which the party continues to rely, which puts the Democrats in a better position than the Republicans going into 2028.

The dependable equivalent on the right, up to this point, has been the MAGA cluster (20 percent). They are core Trump loyalists, and majority white male voters. Despite his unpopularity, this group of blue-collar voters remains loyal to him, and will vote for Trump-backed candidates in the midterm election.

However, as the Republican Party moves forward after the midterm elections, it will need to identify a new leader and a new direction behind which it can consolidate a broad range of conservatives. Trump has been a particularly effective chameleon, managing to speak out of different sides of his mouth to fiscal and social conservatives, nationalists, evangelicals, workers left behind by globalization, and veterans of the "forever wars", among others. Whether Republicans can hold on to them as part of the larger Trump coalition remains to be seen, as the party embarks on a period of soul-searching. Who and what is the Republican Party without him?

The "diverse bootstrap believers" (11 percent) are a more complicated case. Composed mainly of (young) religious men, they generally have an optimistic outlook, are satisfied with the opportunities available to them, and believe the younger generation will be better off than their parents. They are a paradox, liking things about both Trump and the Democrats, and are hard to pin down on a traditional political spectrum.

Religion has become increasingly important to young people, young men in particular, a development both parties are already trying to capitalize on as they test religious political candidates and how they resonate. On the Democratic side are James Talarico (Senate nominee in Texas), Andy Beshear (Governor of Kentucky), Raphael Warnock (Senator from Georgia), and Adam Hamilton (megachurch pastor and Senate nominee in Kansas); on the Republican side is Vice President J.D. Vance, who has made his Catholic conversion story central to the groundwork for a 2028 presidential run. Though these bootstrap believers share some touchpoints with the Democratic Party, such as being pro-refugee and pro-labor, they hold more traditional social views and align more naturally with the Republican Party. Democrats will have to work hard to lock this group in, as the 2028 election will probably cement their party identities.

Pessimists Hold Both Parties' Futures

The next two groups, the "left economic populists" and the "alienated traditionalists", will determine the future of their respective parties. Polarization and pessimism have pushed them to the fringes of their parties: they no longer identify with their parties' traditional bases. While the traditional liberals and MAGA share a sense of optimism, the liberals regarding their personal situations and MAGA regarding the future of the country, these two groups are pessimists who fear being left behind.

These voters are not voting for anything, but nor are they protest voters who mobilize to vote against something. They present a danger for both their parties: the kind of messaging it will take to speak to them could alienate traditional base voters. After the midterms, both parties will have to race to piece this puzzle together.

The "left economic populists" had their moment in the sun in the primaries, managing to nominate a number of leftist candidates, most notably Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed. It helps their case that the biggest political success story on the left since Trump's victory in 2024 is Democratic Socialist Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York City's mayoral race, and his persistently high favorability ratings almost a year into his term.

They have solidified their own, larger camp (27 percent) on the Democratic side, ensuring that their concerns must be taken seriously going forward. Many of these voters are probably discontented Gaza-abstainers who were disregarded by the Democratic Party in the 2024 elections. Despite their liberal pro-labor views and their concerns about the economy and democracy, winning these voters back will be a challenge. Most notably, they want a reckoning within the Democratic Party over its former and current positions on Israel: a hot potato for any 2028 presidential hopeful.

The "alienated traditionalists", on the other hand, are largely nationalist, anti-immigrant, and very religious. Despite their conservative views and their preference for a strong leader, they are unhappy with Trump's policies and feel abandoned by him. Trump's promise to end "forever wars" and working-class message probably drew them in. Now they feel lied to and abandoned, as Trump has become part of the "corrupt establishment", a feeling exacerbated by his expensive and never-ending war with Iran.

The Democratic Party might be able to rekindle its relationship with the "left economic populists". The "alienated traditionalists", however, a sizeable group of 21 percent, feeling burned by the president's broken promises, may give up on political participation and become lost-forever voters, which presents an existential risk for the Republican Party.

While the upcoming midterm elections will be a referendum on voters' distrust of politicians and "the establishment" (whatever that may mean to a voter in 2026), the cases of the "left economic populists" and the "alienated traditionalists" illustrate that 2028 will be an "alienation election". Distrust of institutions was a mobilizing factor for Trump. Now that same distrust may make voters stay at home, as Trump has become part of the institutions he once maligned.

Each party has alienated a large part of its former blue-collar base, and deepened the general lack of trust in politicians. The "diverse bootstrap believers" and their religiosity add a further unpredictable variable to the political equation going forward. Turning out the base has always been considered the key to winning elections, but that will become increasingly complex after the midterm election, whatever the outcome, as the coalitions fracture on both sides.