Here's why this year's midterms will be chaotic, hopeful … and the most dangerous ever

There can be absolutely no doubt that the 2026 midterm elections will be the most chaotic, confusing, and potentially destabilizing elections the United States has ever experienced.

That may sound like a lunatic exaggeration but when you connect all the dots, it reveals itself to be more of a rational explanation.

What’s coming isn’t a single crisis, but a convergence of failures and alarming questions. There is a political storm brewing that combines redistricting madness, Republican infighting, questionable candidates, Donald Trump’s destabilizing presence, geopolitical uncertainty, and a technological leap in political manipulation for which voters are unprepared.

The confluence of these forces threatens to overwhelm the electorate and undermine trust in the democratic process itself. Only a fool would predict the outcome.

The mayhem begins with redistricting, upon which every midterm strategy rests. A Supreme Court decision effectively blessing Texas’s discriminatory congressional map has opened the door for states to redraw districts in nakedly partisan ways. Indiana said no to Trump but that doesn’t mean other red states won’t try. California has led blue states in responding.

With federal voting-rights enforcement largely gutted, red-state legislatures are freer than ever to marginalize Black and brown voters, using last-minute mapmaking trickery and other tactics to further marginalize them and stop them voting.

That uncertainty will bleed into Election Day itself. Voters may not know which district they live in, who represents them, let alone who is running or even what documentation they need until weeks, or days, before voting begins.

Add to that the likely presence of self-appointed “election monitors,” emboldened by Trump and his DOJ, hovering around polling places, and the conditions for confusion and intimidation are baked in.

Layered atop this is a Republican Party that controls the House, Senate, and White House, yet is visibly fracturing. Just months ago, Democrats were criticized for disunity. Now it’s the GOP entering 2026 divided, defensive, and rudderless, Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson extremely weak at best.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, once a MAGA firebrand, will soon be out of Congress following a break with Trump over issues including the Epstein files and cost-of-living pressures. That rupture was notable not because Greene suddenly became a moderate, but because it signaled rare dissent within MAGA ranks, driven by economic anxiety that will only intensify in deep-red districts this year. Greene may be revealed as a dissident savant.

Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), part of GOP House leadership, abruptly suspended her campaign for New York governor and announced she would not seek reelection to the House. She cited a protracted primary but if you look deeper, she might be taking her cues from Greene — and getting out of the way of a trainwreck.

Look at her very public criticism of Johnson. It underscored a broader problem: the GOP’s growing difficulty recruiting and retaining high-profile candidates in competitive races. Johnson is weaker than any speaker in recent history. While his boat sinks, his crew is fleeing. He elicits zero trust.

An endorsement from Trump can now be a liability. If a candidate tries to pull away, he will try to end their campaign and career. Increasingly, Republicans are deciding the safest course is to step aside altogether. Again, Greene is the bellwether.

Retirements are piling up, legislative gridlock is endemic, and frustration has grown so acute that House Republicans are resorting to discharge petitions against their own leadership, i.e. on the Epstein files and expiring Obamacare subsidies.

This is a party struggling to govern itself. The aftermath of the 2025 government shutdown, the longest in U.S. history, only reinforced that perception. Republicans failed to deliver on promises to address rising health-care costs, opting instead for avoidance.

Johnson spent 2025 adjourning the House to sidestep difficult votes, further hollowing his fragile authority. When his speakership collapses — and it will — another messy leadership fight will unfold in full public view, reinforcing voters’ impression of a party incapable of governance.

Compounding it all is a GOP messaging vacuum. Democrats have largely unified around affordability and health care. All they need to do is stick to these issues. There’s no need to harp on Trump because voters are extremely dissatisfied with his autocratic crawl.

Republicans have no coherent narrative. Trump has repeatedly dismissed “affordability” — voters’ top concern — as a “Democratic hoax,” insisting elections will hinge on tax cuts in his so-called “Big Beautiful Bill” that clearly favor the wealthy. A giant reckoning is coming.

Trump is attempting to claim credit for an economy that millions experience as failing them. As costs rise and wages lag, and jobs disappear, that disconnect has become politically toxic.

Hovering over everything is Trump himself — not just his politics but his health and stamina. Once seen as an inexhaustible force, he appears increasingly erratic. His public appearances are weak. He naps, openly. His messaging is disjointed and bizarre.

His approval ratings are in his proverbial golden toilet and will be flushed further down in 2026, particularly among independents and working-class voters who once supported his coalition.

That creates a dilemma for Republicans. Trump’s personality makes selective withdrawal unlikely. He is apt to insert himself into races where he is unwanted, turning local contests into referendums on himself, injecting volatility into already fragile campaigns.

Yet even all this dysfunction may be eclipsed by the biggest wild card of all: the political manipulation of artificial intelligence.

The MIT Technology Review recently issued a stark warning: the age of AI-crafted political persuasion is here. Campaigns and outside groups are deploying machine-generated messaging, tailored to individual voters.

Deepfake audio and video can fabricate candidate statements, spreading faster than fact-checkers can respond. AI chatbots can conduct conversations, at massive scale.

MIT suggests 2026 could be the first true “AI election,” in which voters are forced not only to decide whom they trust, but whether anything they see or hear is real. Most remain largely unaware of how pervasive and sophisticated these tools have become — a knowledge gap bad actors want to exploit.

Layer AI chaos atop shifting districts, unexpected resignations, leadership vacuums, Trump, and a Republican Party that can’t agree on what “affordability” even means, and you’re left with an electorate entering the voting booth with less clarity than at any point in modern history.

The midterms won’t just be messy. They’ll be confusing, illogical, at times openly sinister. They may also be the most consequential such elections the country has ever faced, which is precisely what makes this moment so dangerous.

• John Casey was most recently Senior Editor, The Advocate, and is a freelance opinion and feature story writer. Previously, he was a Capitol Hill press secretary, and spent 25 years in media and public relations in NYC. He is the co-author of LOVE: The Heroic Stories of Marriage Equality (Rizzoli, 2025), named by Oprah in her "Best 25 of 2025.”