A former top aide to Democrat President Bill Clinton tempered hopes that the Democratic Party will see huge gains in the 2026 midterms, asserting that Republicans will be "insulated" by "structural changes" in the country's politics.
Doug Sosnik, who was a senior adviser to Clinton in both terms, shared his analysis in a memo and in an interview with Politico published Wednesday.
Sosnik said the best predictor of midterm elections is the approval rating of the sitting president. With President Donald Trump's approval rating at 44.5% as of this week, according to Nate Silver, Sosnik said, "Trump and the Republicans should be headed to a really bad midterm election."
Yet "due to structural changes in our politics, which are largely due to a realignment in our politics based on education levels, even if the Democrats were to have a really great election cycle in the midterms, there's going to be a limit to how many seats they can win back due to these structural changes," Sosnik said.
He added, "But because of these changes in our politics, due to realignment based on education, they'll be more insulated than they would have been in the past from a tsunami-type of midterm."
Sosnik pointed out that Republicans "enjoy significantly more control over congressional redistricting than Democrats." Texas just completed redistricting, which will likely net Republicans five congressional seats.
"Yet while the Democrats may do well" in 2026, "it is unlikely that they will have anywhere near the level of success that the out-of-power party has had in previous midterm elections with such an unpopular incumbent president," Sosnik wrote in the memo.
"The reason for this has less to do with the Democrats' historically low approval rating than with a political realignment that began forming long before Donald Trump ever ran for president. We may be living in the Age of Trump, but the President should be viewed as the symptom, not the cause of these structural changes in American politics," he added.
"And at least for now, Trump and his party are the beneficiaries of this political realignment."
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.