This year's midterms don't just pit Democrats against Republicans — they also set Republicans against Republicans and Democrats at war with Democrats.
The coalition that better holds together is the one that will win control of the Senate.
Republicans have only a slim chance to keep the House of Representatives, but they head into November with a modest three-seat majority in the upper chamber, really a four-vote margin, since Vice President JD Vance would be the tiebreaker in a 50-50 split.
Headlines have been filled with tales of Republican infighting lately, but polls tell a more complicated story.
Democrats are having a tough time securing their leads in states like Minnesota and Michigan, while Republicans look anemic in GOP bastions like Kansas and Iowa, as well as Texas.
Some of these developments are so surprising, the first reaction is to think the polls must be wrong — and they often are.
But Michigan and Texas provide two clear pictures of intra-party turmoil, as Democrats drift toward becoming the party of the Democratic Socialists of America while Republicans settle scores between MAGA and the party's old guard.
For Team Blue, Michigan should hardly be competitive right now:
Democrats have held the Senate seat that's at stake there since 1979.
Yes, President Donald Trump won the state in 2024, but midterms typically go against the president's party, so Democrats ought to have an easy time retaining the seat Carl Levin and Gary Peters have kept in the party since Jimmy Carter was in the White House.
Yet recent polls have Abdul El-Sayed up only 2 points over Republican Mike Rogers.
The Democrat's troubles begin in his own party:
Though polls predicted a double-digit primary win for El-Sayed, he finished less than 1 point ahead of rival Haley Stevens.
Black and Jewish Democrats remain hesitant to back him even now:
Many black voters haven't forgiven his unwillingness to support Kamala Harris in '24, while his eagerness to accuse Isreal of genocide and his association with anti-Zionists like the leftist podcaster Hasan Piker trouble Jewish Michiganders.
Democrats alarmed by avowed socialists' encroachments into their party also have reservations about El-Sayed, and Rogers is laboring to breach the partisan divide to bring these doubting Dems over to the GOP.
Yet Republican unity is brittle too, not least in the red state Democrats covet most: Texas.
The Lone Star State's Senate race is as tight as Michigan's — and in Texas, too, the Democrat leads the polls.
James Talarico is helped by the fact that the incumbent Republican, Sen. John Cornyn, is a sore loser who won't lift a finger to help the man who beat him in the GOP primary, state Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Cornyn hasn't actually endorsed Talarico, though his former deputy legislative director has signed on as the Talarico campaign's deputy policy director.
But the old-guard Republican, who doesn't vacate office until January, has become increasingly outspoken against other members of his party, including Vance, the heir apparent to the MAGA movement come 2028.
"The extremes of both parties — Republicans' MAGA wing represented by JD Vance and the progressive left represented by Zohran Mamdani — have drawn closer to each other," Cornyn posted on X, summarizing, and evidently endorsing, one journalist's account of the "horseshoe theory" of left-right convergence.
Indeed, Cornyn's view is more popular among pundits than with voters, to judge not only by his own fate at the ballot box but also by the drift of longtime center-right columnists like George Will, who recently went as far as to endorse the Democrats' Senate nominee in South Carolina, Annie Andrews, against Republican Darline Graham.
There's a different kind of horseshoe there, as one of the last century's most prominent Republican-leaning pundits now takes the same side as El-Sayed in working to give Democrats control of the Senate.
At 85, Will is old enough to know political parties are a package deal, and empowering a South Carolina Democrat means empowering radicals like the party's Michigan nominee too.
Trump triumphed two years ago because he did the opposite of Will: He kept the GOP intact despite its tensions, accepting old-guard fixtures as well as MAGA newcomers, and even expanding the coalition to include ex-Democrats like Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Trump hesitated to endorse Paxton over Cornyn this year — and only did so once it was absolutely clear which way Texas Republicans intended to go.
Cornyn and Will, in the end, don't have a problem with Trump. They have a problem with Trump voters: ordinary Republicans, conservative Americans.
Trump's talent for addition and multiplication is what the GOP needs to beat the odds in November.
Old-guard stalwarts who aren't bitter and MAGA insurgents who aren't mindless provocateurs can work together, and work out their differences later.
The other way — Will's and Cornyn's — leads straight to a Democratic Senate and Senator El-Sayed.
(COMMENT, BELOW)
Previously:
• 09/15/26: The Immigration Politics of a Felon's Pardon
• 09/14/26: Jobs and Manufacturing Are on the Ballot
• 09/01/26: How to Tackle Domestic Extremists' Foreign Enablers
• 08/25/26: Why Hasan Piker Mocks a Murdered Man
• 08/18/26: Dems' Southern Strategy
• 08/11/26: Homebuyers Deserve the Facts About Crime and Schools
• 08/04/26: Diversity, Equity, and Confabulation
• 07/28/26: Democratic Socialists of America vs. John Adams
• 07/21/26: Why Dems Can't Do Better Than Kamala Harris in 2028
• 07/14/26: Prescription for a Socialist Workforce
• 07/07/26: The Smithsonian's Patriotism Problem
• 06/30/26: Bill Maher, Liberalism's Apostate
• 06/23/26: Can Anyone Govern Britain -- or America?
• 06/16/26: University Professors Against Academic Freedom
• 06/09/26: Pope Leo Courts the Global Left
• 06/02/26: A Mass-Graves Myth Is Media Malpractice
• 05/28/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/26/26: Dems Face Midterm Disappointment
• 05/12/26: Dems finally come clean 'bout their radical design
• 05/05/26: The Silenced Generation
• 04/28/26:Colleges Are Making Political Violence Worse
• 04/21/26:Immigration Amnesty by Any Other Name
• 04/14/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 04/07/26: A New Extreme in Gerrymandering
• 03/17/26: Why Are Senate Dems Making Air Travel Worse?
• 03/10/26: Cuba Should Accept Trump's 'Friendly Takeover'
• 03/03/26: Immigration Enforcement Saves Lives
• 02/24/26: How a Party Offends Its Voters
• 02/17/26: Why Are Anti-ICE Activists Building Borders?
• 02/10/26: A Japanese Lesson for Troubled Britain
• 02/03/26: The Trump Coalition Wins But the GOP Brand Doesn't
• 01/27/26: Canada Should Warm to Trump's Arctic Plans
• 01/20/26: From Rock to Tech, Talent Flees Taxes
• 01/13/26: Woman Who Weaponized Car Against I.C.E Endangered Her Life -- and Yours
• 01/06/26: Tim Walz Personifies Dems' Decline
• 12/30/25: Harvard Says Yes to Discrimination, No to Western Civ
• 12/23/25: JD Vance Gets America's Creed and Heritage Right
• 12/16/25: Trump's Inflation Trap
• 12/09/25: Biden's Immigration Debacle Is the Media's, Too
• 12/02/25: 'Iryna's Law' and the Bad Judges Who Make It Necessary
• 11/26/25: Marjorie Taylor Greene's Exit Is a Warning to Republicans
• 11/19/25: Trump Hasn't Lost Hispanics (Yet)
• 11/11/25: Trump's Tariffs on Trial
• 10/28/25: MAGA Makes Allies Great Again
• 10/21/25: How To Make the AmericaS Great Again
• 10/16/25: Columbus Day Celebrates Our Civilization
• 10/09/25: Why Sharpies Are Made in America Again
• 09/30/25: Assata Shakur and Other Parents of Political Violence
• 09/09/25: Who's Accountable for Autopen Pardons?
• 09/02/25: Gender dysphoria is a mental-illness, NOT an all-encompassing delusion
• 08/26/25: Trump's Industrial Policy Is Realism, Not Socialism
• 08/19/25: Is Gavin Newsom the Dems' Answer to Trump?
• 08/12/25: Just Say No to More Marijuana
• 08/05/25: Will the GOP Make Libs Generous Again?
• 07/30/25: Trump's Trade Lesson for Economists (and the World)
• 07/22/25: Whose Politics Canceled Stephen Colbert?
• 07/08/25: A Big Beautiful Test of GOP Principles and Discipline
• 07/01/25: Dems Need Populism, But Not Zohran's Sort
• 06/25/25: Secure Borders Win Wars Like This One
• 06/18/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/17/25: WEIRD Protesters Should Stay Home
• 06/04/25: State that's long eluded GOP turns toward Trump
• 05/21/24: Trump's Sun Belt Hopes and Rust Belt Needs
• 05/14/24: What Trump Sees in Doug Burgum
• 05/07/24: The Vietnam Era Never Ended for Biden's Party
• 05/06/24: Nationalists of the World, Unite?
• 04/25/24: Foreign Policy Splits
• 04/16/24: How pro-lifers stand to lose everything gained in overturning Roe
• 04/02/24: PBS Misremembers William F. Buckley Jr.
• 04/02/24: Who Wants to Be House Speaker?
• 03/26/24: Trump Hunts for a VP Close to Home
• 03/19/24: Princess Kate and Democracy's Discontents
• 03/12/24: Can Biden Buy the Voters?
• 03/05/24: Veepstakes Give Trump an Edge
• 02/20/24: Do Americans Trust Either Party?
• 02/13/24: Vladimir Putin -- A Passive Aggressor
• 01/23/24: Will 'Lawfare' Take Trump Off the Ballot?
• 01/16/24: Will Africa Save America?
• 01/09/24:'The Sopranos' at 25: A new world tragedy
• 01/02/24: Trump, Biden and a Fight for the Heart
• 12/12/23: What Happened to Ron DeSantis?
• 12/12/23: Biden Looks Doomed -- But Is He?
• 12/05/23: A Test for Trump and His Rivals
• 11/21/23: When Inequality Is Fatal for Men
• 11/14/23: Nevermind, The Battle's Over
• 11/07/23: War in the Dem Party -- and at the Opera
• 10/24/23: Israel's Lesson for 2024: A Lib Crackup
• 10/17/23: Libs' Dilemma: Immigration or Israel?
• 10/10/23: Why Bidenflation Defines Bidenomics
• 10/03/23: Will Gavin Newsom Copy Trump?
• 09/26/23: Biden's a Loser -- but Dems Can't Ditch Him
• 09/19/23: Do Sex Scandals Matter?
• 09/12/23: Cornel West Spells Doom for Biden
• 09/05/23: What Trump Does for Democracy
• 08/2/23: Ramaswamy: A Trump Versus Trump?
• 08/22/23: Take 'Rich Men North of Richmond' Seriously
• 08/16/23: How America Kills Its Own
• 08/08/23: The Biden Pardon That Can Spare America
• 08/01/23: Harding, a consevative for the ages
• 07/25/23: Demography Destiny, for Us and China
• 07/18/23: The Frontrunner Who Looks Like a Loser Is Biden
• 07/11/23: Britain's Bad Example for American Conservatives
• 07/05/23: Could We Still Win a Revolutionary War?
• 06/27/23: Civilizations Clash -- in Ukraine and at Home
• 06/20/23: China Comes for the Caribbean
• 06/13/23: Fertility, Family and Bio-Socialism
• 06/06/23: From American Dream to Orwell's Nightmare
• 05/23/23: Ukraine war is an existential struggle --- for the West
• 05/23/23: Learn the Right Midterm Lessons -- or Lose in 2024
• 05/16/23: Feinstein Today Is Biden Tomorrow
• 05/09/23: Trump, DeSantis and Political Courtship
• 05/02/23: RFK Jr.'s Threat to Biden
• 04/25/23: Biden's Lost Generation
• 04/25/23: Who's In Charge of Clarence Thomas?
• 04/11/23: Beyond AI, Our Cyborg Future
• 04/04/23: 2024: 3 Leaders, 1 Way to Win
• 03/28/23: Climate Science Makes a Bad Religion
• 03/21/23: All the Conspiracy That's Fit to Print