It is a given of the 2026 midterms that a wave of still-uncertain magnitude is likely because of Donald Trump’s historic unpopularity. What gets less attention is how much the Senate races themselves — like who is running and whether an election is even being held — have been shaped very directly by his actions. Ohio, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and Iowa all, amazingly, fall into this bucket.
Let’s start with Ohio and Florida. You wouldn’t have elections in these states at all if Trump hadn’t brought JD Vance and Marco Rubio into his administration.
In Iowa and Texas, Trump played central roles in driving incumbents Joni Ernst and John Cornyn out of public life.
In North Carolina too it’s hard to imagine Tom Tillis would have retired if Trump hadn’t essentially forced him to retire. In this case, though, Trump went on to gift the nomination to Michael Whatley as a make-good for babysitting Lara Trump when she was the head of the RNC. Whatley is, by bipartisan estimation, a uniquely weak candidate.
In South Carolina, Trump insisted on supporting Lindsey Graham’s sister as his permanent replacement. She’s still likely to win. But she is a uniquely weak candidate. Any actual South Carolina politician would almost certainly be faring better.
Georgia is hard to see at first. But John Ossoff would likely not be the incumbent at all if not for Trump’s 2020 election-stealing shenanigans.
Amazingly, this accounts for the vast majority of contested Senate races. In every case, the particular candidate or even the existence of a candidate (because there’s even an open seat) comes down to Trump’s treating the GOP as a tool to serve his immediate political and emotional needs.