The double-haters’ guide to the midterm elections

Voters disgusted with both parties could send Republicans packing in November. But that won't bring much satisfaction.

Double-haters aren’t as grumpy as they sound. They don’t go around hating on people in general. What they hate are both political parties, and for good reason: Neither Republicans nor Democrats can solve the problems that burden Americans the most. Both parties seem to be driven by power-hungry egomaniacs who live in a gilded world disconnected from real America.

Double-haters don’t have a party—but they have more clout than ever. The portion of American voters with a negative impression of both parties has risen to 26%, according to Pew Research. That’s the highest on record. “People who dislike everyone are increasingly essential to politics,” Beacon Policy Advisors reported in a recent analysis.

Double-haters are related to Independents, who now account for 45% of all voters, according to Gallup. That’s also the highest on record. The Republican and Democratic parties each nab just 27% of voters. The difference between an Independent and a double-hater is that Independents sometimes lean toward one party or the other, while double-haters shun them both, with intensity.

Angry Americans fed up with both parties will be the swing voters in the 2026 midterm elections, determining whether Democrats retake the House or the Senate, or both. Right now, it looks like double-haters will boot Republicans from control of the House and put Democrats back in charge there.

CHANGE IN NOVEMBER

A recent Strength in Numbers poll found that double-haters break toward Democrats by a net margin of 26 percentage points. Independents are breaking toward Democrats in similar numbers. Given their growing numbers, double-hater support accounts for most of the 5- to 10-point edge Democrats have over Republicans in national polling. A lead of that magnitude usually correlates with solid electoral gains in the midterms, and Dems only need to gain three seats to flip the House.

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The Senate is more of a tossup, requiring several tough flips for Democrats to take control. But taking the House alone would be enough for Democrats to block President Trump’s legislative agenda for the next two years and conduct numerous oversight probes into possible abuses of power by Trump and his allies.

If double-haters do bring regime change to Washington, however, they’re likely to end up disappointed. What double-haters really seem to want, cycle after cycle, is to vote the governing party out. We know this because in 2024, double-haters backed Trump by a net margin of 20 points. Those voters were fed up with the high inflation, unchecked illegal immigration, and excessive wokeness of the Joe Biden presidency. They voted for Trump because they wanted him to fix the things Biden and his fellow Democrats didn’t.

Trump has now failed the double-haters. Prices are still high, there’s a crazy war, violent immigration agents have gone berserk, and Trump has cut food and health-care benefits while enriching himself. The double-haters are still upset with the status quo, and poised to punish the boss party once again. Only Republicans are now the ones in charge.

SPLIT GOVERNMENT

The agony of the double-haters is that no political coalition seems likely to deliver the change they rightly demand. If there’s split government after the midterms, there won’t be any legislation to address the affordability concerns dogging millions of Americans. There will just be continual fighting between the parties.

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Republican government of the last 18 months has brought tax cuts for the wealthy, benefit cutbacks for the poor, higher prices, and as always, a soaring national debt. That’s not what double-haters voted for in 2024. But even if Democrats regain full control of Congress and the White House at some point, it’s unlikely they’ll move the needle much.

Democrats are as split as ever between a “socialist” faction keen on kneecapping capitalism and centrists who can’t clearly define what they stand for. Competing agendas weaken the whole party and are a big reason the Democratic brand is so tarnished in the first place.

IN A PERFECT WORLD

The biggest problems in the US economy stem from worsening wealth and income inequality that has left the gap between the rich and the rest as wide as it has been in at least a century, and maybe ever. If we had a rational government, there would be an urgent bipartisan effort to manage capitalism better so that every American benefits as much as possible from the nation’s amazing wealth.

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We’d have overlapping systems to make health care affordable and universal. There would be no tariffs, needless wars, or other stupid policies driving costs higher. We’d have an all-of-the-above energy strategy meant to surge renewables while also ensuring fossil fuels keep costs reasonable in the meantime. Borders would be tightly controlled and legal immigration would be an important factor in the country’s dynamism.

One can dream. What we learned from the Biden presidency is that Democrats go so far overboard on giveaways for favored groups—student-loan cancellation, migrant amnesty, stimulus payments, fossil-fuel vilification—that nonpartisan voters rebel and align with the other side. That’s just enough to eject the governing party in favor of something else, which turns out to be no better.

Double-haters are poised to flex their muscles in November, and mete out punishment to Republicans who have done them wrong. But after that, there will still be a lot to hate.

Enjoy a cartoon.

Cartoon by Bob Mankoff

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