The Atlantic's Jon Lemire argued this week that many of President Donald Trump's actions have only hurt him and his fellow Republicans ahead of November's midterm elections, describing a number of them as "quite a few impetuous and ill-considered."
The assessment, carried by the magazine's @TheAtlantic account, lands as the president's party approaches a midterm cycle in which the entire House and a third of the Senate are on the ballot, and as commentators across the political spectrum debate whether the president's political standing has begun to slip.
Lemire's column is not an isolated data point. It joins a broader run of commentary in recent days questioning the durability of Trump's political influence. Salon.com carried a piece described as examining whether "Trump's superpower is fading" and whether he can "recharge before the midterms," framing what it called a "relentless persistence" driving the president's "quest for grift and revenge" as no longer sufficient for the political fight ahead.
That framing is itself contested ground, and it is worth being precise about what is being claimed. The assertion that Trump's actions have damaged Republican prospects is an argument advanced by Lemire and echoed by other outlets, not a measured outcome. It is not yet known what effect, if any, any particular presidential action will have on individual races in November, and no election results exist to settle the question.
What can be said with confidence is that the argument has traveled. The Atlantic piece circulated under the magazine's own account, and the Salon piece advanced a similar thesis independently. Together they represent two outlets, one legacy magazine and one online publication, converging on the claim that the president's political position is weaker than it has been and that his recent conduct is the reason.
The specific events Lemire has in mind are not enumerated in the excerpt that circulated. The passage that traveled names no particular action, no particular policy, and no particular Republican candidate. It asserts a pattern, not an incident.
The Salon piece is more expansive in its characterization, describing what it calls a "quest for grift and revenge" and a "relentless persistence." That language is the publication's own editorial framing, and it is attributed here as such. Salon's headline poses the question of whether the president can "recharge" before the midterms, which is a question, not a finding.
Both pieces sit within a long tradition of midterm commentary in which the president's party is expected to lose ground. That expectation, whatever its merits in any given year, does not establish that any particular president caused any particular result. The president's party lost House seats in 2018, gained House seats in 2022, and the difference between those outcomes had more to do with dozens of district-level factors than with any single national narrative. Whether 2026 will resemble either cycle is not yet known.
It is also worth noting what the commentary does not contain. Neither piece, in the material that circulated, cited polling data showing a decline in the president's standing. Neither cited Republican candidates publicly distancing themselves from the White House. Neither named a single Republican elected official who had said the president was hurting their race. The claim that the president's actions have hurt Republicans ahead of the midterms is, in the material available, an assertion by columnists rather than a documented electoral trend.
That distinction matters for readers trying to weigh the argument. A columnist's judgment about political cause and effect is a form of analysis, and analysis can be valuable even when it is not proof. But it is not the same as a special election result, a poll average, a fundraising report, or a public defection by a sitting lawmaker. None of those appear in the excerpts under discussion.
The president's own account has not responded to the Atlantic column or the Salon piece in the material reviewed, and the White House has not issued any statement addressing either, at least not on the record and not in the excerpts that circulated. It is not yet known whether the White House intends to respond, and if it does, what form that response would take.
What is known is the sequence. The Atlantic published and promoted a column by Lemire arguing that many of the president's actions have hurt him and his party. Salon published a piece framing the president's political power as fading and asking whether it can be restored before November. Other outlets have picked up similar themes as the midterm calendar advances.
Next News Network could not independently verify the claim that President Trump's actions have harmed his and his party's prospects ahead of the midterm elections, nor could it independently verify the characterization of those actions as impetuous or ill-considered. Readers should treat the assertions of both publications as commentary rather than established fact.
What the reader can take from the exchange, without resolving the underlying dispute, is that a portion of the national political press is preparing the public for a difficult midterm for the president's party and is attributing that difficulty to the president himself. Whether voters agree, and whether the prediction holds, will be settled by ballots rather than columns.
Our Take
Here is what the Atlantic and Salon pieces actually amount to: two outlets telling Republican voters in advance that their own president is the reason they should expect to lose. Notice the shape of it. Lemire names no act. Salon names no act. Both reach for the pattern and let the reader fill in the blanks from whatever the president did that week. That is not reporting; it is a mood board with a byline.
The tell is what is missing. If the president were truly dragging Republicans under, there would be polling averages to point to. There would be candidates in competitive districts quietly declining to appear with him, and reporters would be quoting their strategists on background. There would be special election results in the material. There are none. What we have instead is a columnist's adjective, "impetuous," doing the work that a number was supposed to do, and a headline asking a question the outlet does not answer.
We have watched this movie before. The same press corps told us in 2022 that the president's influence was a liability and that the red wave would be a ripple. Then Republicans took the House. The commentary aged badly, but the commentary is not what gets graded in November. Voters are.
So read the Atlantic and Salon pieces the way you would read any other speculation about an election that has not happened yet. Take the claim seriously enough to test it. Ask which Republican in which district has been hurt, and by what, and by how much, and where the evidence is. If the answer is that the evidence is the vibes, then you already know what you are holding. Our advice: don't let the press decide the midterms before you do. They are not on the ballot either.
