Warning signs for Trump’s Republicans. Labor Day opens the last sprint.

Labor Day Monday is the unofficial start of the last sprint. President Donald Trump’s unpopularity is putting Republican majorities in Congress at risk two months before the midterms, a Reuters wire carried by U.S. News reported this morning. Midterms are a referendum on the White House. In the Trump years that is not a theory. All 435 House seats and about a third of the Senate are on the ballot November 3. Republicans hold the House 218–214.

If Democrats take the House — analysts say that looks likely — they can open investigations the administration would rather not sit for and force a deal on most bills. Party leaders have already promised probes they call corruption. The Senate is too close to call. A Democratic majority there could block nominees, including a justice if a seat opens. Trump’s approval, in the latest Reuters/Ipsos survey, is at an all-time low. Broad majorities are dissatisfied with the war in Iran and the economy. Net disapproval is nearly twice the print at this point in 2018, when Democrats gained 40 House seats.

If you want to voice your displeasure with the president, the only way you can do that during the midterm elections is by voting against his party.

Democrats are more eager to vote than Republicans, and recent specials and primaries have shown it. Registered voters prefer Democratic candidates by five points. History leans the same way: the president’s party has lost House seats in all but two midterms since 1938. Jessica Taylor of the Cook Political Report said the number-one issue is affordability and that the president does not appear focused on it. “If you want to voice your displeasure with the president,” she said, “the only way you can do that during the midterm elections is by voting against his party.”

Democrats have their own split. Progressive insurgents, including democratic socialists, have beaten establishment moderates in primaries. That is a unity problem, not a turnout problem. Republicans still have the furniture: as many as ten House seats from mid-decade maps alone. The Senate map is hostile. Even if Democrats win Georgia, Maine, Michigan and North Carolina, they still need two of Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas — states Trump carried by double digits in 2024. On Sunday an armed attacker failed to harm Amy Acton, the Democratic candidate for governor of Ohio, at a fair near Youngstown.

Democratic candidates have outraised Republicans on the ground. Republican national committees and aligned super PACs have more. Trump’s own super PAC holds about $400 million. Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic strategist, said Democrats will win the national popular vote: “It’s a question of whether those structural barriers prevent them from winning the majority.” Republicans, with Trump, are painting Democrats as socialists and communists and naming Abdul El-Sayed, the progressive Senate nominee in Michigan. Speaker Mike Johnson called this a “Contrast for America” year, after 1994: “It’s a contrast between common sense and crazy.”

Whether that lands against the price of living is the campaign. Iowa farmers are eating energy costs and tariffs. Texas cattle ranchers objected when he lifted import taxes on foreign beef. Michigan and Maine sit next to a trade war with Canada. Republicans hold an unusual midterm convention this week. Trump speaks both nights. Affordability and the war lead. Healthcare, Israel’s war in Gaza, and data centers will share the ads. Eight weeks is an eternity in this presidency. Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics asked the question the sprint is for: can Republicans raise enthusiasm, or is the approval decline terminal.