SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
US President Donald Trump’s approval rating has hit a record low. Most commentators believe his party will take a beating in the midterm elections in three months. Instead, the Republicans will probably win.
Yes, the Iran war is a running sore, bringing with it higher petrol prices, fertiliser shortages and economic pessimism. But there are half a billion reasons to believe the Republicans will emerge victorious in both houses of Congress.
The midterm elections determine the composition of Congress and occur halfway through the four-year term of a president. The Republicans hold both the Senate (53-47) and the House of Representatives (218-215). Republican strategists remain optimistic.
US elections are heavily determined by money, giving the Republicans a massive advantage because most billionaire mega-donors support them. History shows that the number of votes cast for the major parties closely tracks their campaign spending. For more than four decades, the top fundraiser has won 92 per cent of the time in congressional primaries and general elections. Individual Democratic candidates have raised more money in high-profile Senate contests and in many House ones as well, but Republicans and their allied groups dominate the overall fundraising landscape.
Right now, the Republican Party has half a billion dollars more than the Democratic Party, which is $2 million in debt and asking its suppliers to send their bills after the midterms. In 2024, not only did Democrat candidate Kamala Harris lose to Trump, her campaign left millions in debt that her party had to pay off.
In the late 19th century, Republican businessman and senator Mark Hanna quipped: “There are two things that are important in politics. The first is money, and I can’t remember what the second is.” In 2010, the US Supreme Court cemented this notion. The court ruled that restricting how money could be spent in election campaigning was unconstitutional because it was the same as restricting speech. In effect, it said that “money is [free] speech”.
The result was a proliferation of new political action committees known as Super PACs, which could receive unlimited funding from corporations, unions or individuals, and spend it advocating for or against specific political candidates. Super PACs supercharged the role of money in politics by giving mega-donors a disproportionately loud voice. It enabled them to bombard Americans in every TV ad break, and on every social and news media site.
In 2025, the outcome of this influx of advertising was that nearly half the population hadn’t even heard about Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill”, which mostly benefited the rich while cutting Medicaid spending and nutrition assistance programs for the poor and elderly. Only 8 per cent could name Medicaid cuts as a detail of that piece of legislation. Americans were four times more likely to have heard about the Iran war. As the business press reported, it was “probably just as well” for Trump and the Republicans because, among those who did know about the bill, it was “strikingly unpopular” – opposition ran two to one against it.
Despite the court’s 2010 ruling, one restriction remained: Super PACs could not “co-ordinate” with a candidate by working together or sharing strategy. In June this year, however, the Supreme Court removed limits on co-ordination between Super PACs and candidates. That altered the practical mechanism of election campaigns because candidates, their parties and the Super PACs can now write advertising scripts together, share internal polling data and become more effective through strategic alignment. It is the difference between a makeshift military coalition and NATO.
Predictably, the world’s wealthiest individual, Elon Musk, last week committed $US120 million ($170 million) to help elect Republicans. Other AI and cryptocurrency billionaires are joining him. Republicans will paint Democrats as radicals by publicising some candidates’ past or current statements about defunding the police or abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Three months ago, the US Supreme Court struck down key protections of the Voting Rights Act when it ruled that the state of Louisiana’s congressional map was an “unconstitutional gerrymander”. The implications went well beyond Louisiana, effectively allowing Republican-led states such as Texas, Florida and Ohio to redraw their congressional maps to favour the Republican Party. The result, as the Cook Political Report shows, is “a 2026 House map that is more skewed towards Republicans”. Unlike in Australia, where impartial election commissions are responsible for drawing the boundaries of lower house seats, in the US political parties in control of individual states handle the redistricting. It gives them an 11 per cent increase in the likelihood of winning a House race. The Republican Party now enjoys a structural advantage heading into November.
The US system is so rigged that it wouldn’t meet the standard for accession to the European Union. It doesn’t come close to the system we have in Australia. Many Americans can also be excluded because the elections are on a Tuesday, when people are working. Some states require voter identification such as a current driver’s licence with current name and address. Nearly 35 million voting-age Americans don’t have one. The state of Georgia even made it illegal to give food and water to voters waiting in line near polling places – something that would likely astonish Australians accustomed to enjoying a sausage and coffee on election day.
Trump’s current geopolitical difficulties should not distract observers from the deeper forces aligned in his favour. The Republican Party is likely to win, gain even more power over the next two years, and gather momentum in the 2028 contest to succeed Trump as president.
Professor Clinton Fernandes is in the Future Operations Research Group at UNSW. His latest book is Turbulence: Australian Foreign Policy in the Trump Era.
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Professor Clinton Fernandes is part of University of NSW’s Future Operations Research Group which analyses the threats, risks and opportunities that military forces will face in the future. He is a former intelligence officer in the Australian Army.
