ANALYSIS — With 19 months to go before the midterm elections, it’s too early to know what the political environment will be like in November 2026 and too early to project whether Republicans will maintain their hold on Congress.
But we do know that the political environment has changed since Donald Trump and the Republicans won full control of Washington last fall, and a fresh batch of election results are evidence that the GOP has work to do to avoid big losses next year.
In a high-profile race for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, Democrat-backed Susan Crawford defeated fellow circuit judge and former Republican state Attorney General Brad Schimel, 55 percent to 45 percent, in the most expensive judicial race in history. That 10-point margin is striking in the most evenly divided state in the country, according to Inside Elections’ Baseline, and which Trump narrowly won last year.
