POLITICO Nightly: The midterms won’t save the Democrats

 

By Calder McHugh and Charlie Mahtesian Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) questions Pete Hegseth during his Senate Armed Services confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill on Jan. 14. | Andrew Harnik/Getty Images UNFRIENDLY MAP — If there’s any silver lining for Democrats in the gray storm cloud that is GOP-dominated Washington, it’s that in two years there’s likely to be a backlash. That’s not an assessment of Trump’s first two months in the White House so much as it is a historical fact. Midterm elections tend to be unkind to the party in power. The sitting president’s party has lost House seats in every midterm but two dating back to 1950. The last time Donald Trump was president, during the 2018 midterms Democrats flipped the House and picked up 41 House seats. The prospect of an epic comeuppance in 2026 — as in 1994, 2010 or even 2018 — gives many Democrats hope in what is otherwise a dark time. But this week brings yet another reminder that the midterm isn’t necessarily going to solve the party’s problems. While Democrats begin the election cycle in a decent position to win back the House by campaigning against Trump overreach, control of the Senate may be out of reach. Just like in 2018, when Republicans were able to keep control of the Senate in face of a strong Democratic tide, an unfavorable Senate map this year makes the Democratic path incredibly daunting. Even accounting for thermostatic public opinion swinging far away from the GOP and the fact that Republicans are defending close to twice as many Senate seats as Democrats, it will be a tall task for Democrats to pick up the seats the party needs to win back the chamber. The problem is the nature of the seats the two parties are defending. Nearly all of the 22 Republican-held seats are in red states — many of them red states where Trump romped in 2024. At the moment, there are only two Republican-held seats that figure to be competitive (Maine and North Carolina). Democrats are only defending 13 seats, but four of those races figure to be competitive — and two of them (Georgia and Michigan) are presently viewed as toss-ups. This week, the Senate map got even more complicated for Democrats. Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) announced Wednesday that she would not seek reelection in 2026, making her the third Democrat from a competitive state to announce retirement, joining Sens. Tina Smith of Minnesota and Gary Peters of Michigan. The last time a Republican won a Senate election in New Hampshire was in 2010, so Democrats aren’t exactly panicking. Democrats can also feel relatively confident about their chances of holding onto seats in Minnesota and Michigan after holding Senate seats in both states in 2024. Still, winning open seats is always a much trickier prospect than having an incumbent defend a seat. In New Hampshire, Democrats have a strong bench but popular former governor Chris Sununu — whose brother served in the Senate — has opened the door to a potential Senate run , which would change the equation. Yet even if Democrats successfully hold on to Minnesota, Michigan and New Hampshire — and hold Sen. Jon Ossoff’s Georgia seat — they’ll still need to pick off four Republican seats to win outright control of the chamber. After the plausible pickup opportunities of Maine and North Carolina, things get exponentially harder. If former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown runs in Ohio against Sen. Jon Husted, who was appointed to fill Vice President JD Vance’s seat, Democratic chances would improve there. But the hard reality is that to recapture the Senate, Democrats will have to run a gauntlet of states that Trump carried by over 10 points in 2024. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer expresses confidence that Trump will “screw up” and that “We’re going to do a lot better in the Senate than people think [in 2026].” But this week’s news in New Hampshire — with Shaheen retiring and Sununu dipping his toe in the water — further confirms that even a blue wave which delivers the House to Democrats may not be enough to deliver the Senate. What they’ll need is a tsunami. Welcome to POLITICO Nightly. Reach out with news, tips and ideas at nightly@politico.com . Or contact tonight’s authors at cmchugh@politico.com and cmahtesian@politico.com or on X (formerly known as Twitter) at @calder_mchugh and @PoliticoCharlie .   Policy moves fast—stay ahead with POLITICO’s Policy Intelligence Assistant. Effortlessly search POLITICO's archive of 1M+ news articles, analysis documents, and legislative text. Track legislation, showcase your impact, and generate custom reports in seconds. Designed for POLITICO Pro subscribers, this tool helps you make faster, smarter decisions. Start exploring now .     What'd I Miss? — Thousands of fired federal workers must be rehired immediately, judge rules: A federal judge today ordered federal agencies to rehire tens of thousands of probationary employees who were fired amid President Donald Trump’s turbulent effort to drastically shrink the federal bureaucracy. U.S. District Judge William Alsup described the mass firings as a “sham” strategy by the government’s central human resources office to sidestep legal requirements for reducing the federal workforce. Alsup, a San Francisco-based appointee of President Bill Clinton, ordered the Defense, Treasury, Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Veterans Affairs departments to “immediately” offer all fired probationary employees their jobs back. The Office of Personnel Management, the judge said, had made an “unlawful” decision to terminate them. — Democrats should back away from shutdown, Schumer says: Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer stepped Democrats away from the edge of a shutdown today — warning that repercussions of closing the federal government would be worse than the only viable alternative, passing the House GOP funding bill that many in Schumer’s party loathe. Schumer’s remarks — made first during a closed-door lunch with his colleagues today and then from the Senate floor in a lengthy speech — are a significant indication that enough Senate Democrats will vote to advance the House GOP bill and avoid a shutdown that would start after midnight Friday. — Trump asks Supreme Court to curb judges’ power to block policies nationwide: President Donald Trump is asking the Supreme Court to eliminate a key tool that lower courts have used to block various aspects of his agenda . In an emergency appeal today, Trump asked the justices to rein in or shelve three nationwide injunctions lower-court judges have issued against his bid to end birthright citizenship. But his request could have repercussions far beyond the debate over the controversial citizenship plan. Judges have used nationwide injunctions to hobble many of Trump’s early moves, from his bid to end “Diversity, Equity and Inclusion” programs to his cuts to federal medical research. — White House withdraws CDC director nominee: The White House has withdrawn its nominee to run the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , in an abrupt move just hours before his confirmation hearing was scheduled to begin. Trump officials informed the Senate this morning that Dave Weldon, a former Florida congressman, will no longer be its pick for the agency, according to two people familiar with the matter and granted anonymity to discuss it. excerpt:  Weldon had faced growing scrutiny over his anti-vaccine views, including an extensive record during his time in Congress of raising questions about the safety of vaccines and their potential links to autism. That history had prompted concerns within the Senate and others close to the process for weeks, fueling constant rumors that his nomination would eventually need to be pulled. — Musk visits top intelligence agency: Elon Musk visited the National Security Agency on Wednesday , according to an agency spokesperson. The initially undisclosed meeting comes roughly a week after the Trump ally said the U.S. intelligence agency needed to be overhauled. A NSA spokesperson confirmed that Musk met with NSA chief Gen. Timothy Haugh in what was Musk’s first visit to the agency. While it remains unclear what Musk and Haugh discussed, NSA’s statement said the meeting helped facilitate coordination between the agency and the Trump administration. — Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva dies at 77: Rep. Raul Grijalva has died at 77,according to a statement from his office . The 12-term Arizona Democrat had been under treatment for cancer. “Rep. Grijalva fought a long and brave battle,” the statement said. “He passed away this morning due to complications of his cancer treatments.” Grijalva had been largely absent from Congress since the beginning of the year due to his health struggles. He was set to retire from the House at the end of this term and had stepped aside from his position as the top Democrat on the House Natural Resources Committee. AROUND THE WORLD Russia's President Vladimir Putin speaks during a press conference at the Kremlin in Moscow today. | Maxim Shemetov/POOL/AFP via Getty Images NOT SO FAST — Vladimir Putin says he backs a ceasefire, but don’t hold your breath for an immediate breakthrough . Russia’s president today laid out what looked like a raft of delaying questions and burdensome conditions on American proposals to end the Kremlin’s war in Ukraine. Putin will huddle with United States President Donald Trump’s envoy Steve Witkoff in a closed-door meeting at the Kremlin tonight. He is being careful to say he broadly supports the initiative, but is simultaneously setting out what he sees as impediments to an overnight breakthrough. “We agree with the proposals to stop military actions, but we proceed from the fact that this cessation should be such that it would lead to long-term peace and eliminate the root causes of the crisis,” the Russian leader noted. PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE — Germany’s chancellor-in-waiting today urged Green lawmakers to pass constitutional amendments that would unleash up to €1 trillion in new spending to bolster the country’s military and invest in its economy. In a fiery Bundestag debate, Friedrich Merz — who leads the conservative block in parliament made up of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its Bavarian sister party, the Christian Social Union (CSU) — asked parliament for support. The debate comes as the CDU/CSU — victors of the Feb. 23 election — and the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) prepare to form a new government after the collapse of the previous tripartite coalition in November 2024 over spending issues. To pass the package of three constitutional amendments, Merz needs to secure a two-thirds majority in parliament. When the newly elected Bundestag convenes March 25, the far-right, pro-Kremlin Alternative for Germany (AfD) and The Left — which opposes increased military spending — are likely to block the amendments. Merz must thus secure the Greens’ backing in the coming days. For them, ongoing negotiations with the CDU/CSU and the SPD present their final chance to secure policy concessions before moving into the opposition. Nightly Number Over 10 percent The amount the S&P 500 has now dropped off of the record high that it set just last month, meaning the market is officially in “correction” territory. RADAR SWEEP WORK-LIFE BALANCE — Some Gen-Z’ers with traditional 9-to-5 jobs are doing their best to avoid actually working. Stealing time in various ways from employers isn’t a new phenomenon, and every new generation that enters the workplace gets called lazy in new, creative ways by their elders. But Maddy Mussen at The London Standard surveyed some young employees and found some pretty amazing ways to avoid actually working. They include taking lunches that stretch well over an hour, booking yoga classes as “doctor’s appointments” and finding places in the workplace to literally hide from their bosses. Read the survey here . Parting Image On this date in 1993: A snowstorm rips through the Atlanta area. Signs to I-75 and I-85 were knocked down in the windy snowstorm near the Capitol. | Curtis Compton/AP Did someone forward this email to you?  Sign up here .   Follow us on Twitter Charlie Mahtesian @PoliticoCharlie Calder McHugh @calder_mchugh   Follow us

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