Midterm Elections 2026: What to Watch on Nov. 3
Three things from our conversation are worth carrying into Election Day.
- A win is the start of the test. Roginsky says Democrats must end the filibuster and show results, or face what she called “a massive revolution from their own base.”
- A loss would be on Democrats. “If there was no cheating in this election,” she said, there would be no one else to blame.
- The fault lines don’t go away. The DSA, Medicare for All and Israel aid will challenge Democratic leaders whether they win or lose.
With the 2026 midterm elections a week away, I asked veteran Democratic political consultant Julie Roginsky the question hanging over every campaign in the country: what is actually at stake for Democrats on Nov. 3?
Her answer came in two parts. If Democrats win, she said, “they can finally turn the page on the Trump administration and begin to hold people accountable who long ago deserved to be accountable.” If they lose, “they have a lot of soul searching to do.” Roginsky is a longtime Democratic strategist whose past clients include Cory Booker. She and I both worked at Fox News.
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What Happens If Democrats Win the 2026 Midterms? Filibuster Reform & Strategy
A sweep would only start the test. Nate Silver’s Oct. 27 update said Democrats “remain strong favorites to retake the House”. Roginsky says Democrats must then end the Senate filibuster. “What’s going to have to happen is not just that Democrats get control of both houses, but that they get rid of the filibuster and they pass stuff,” she said. Otherwise, “they’re gonna have a very rough time in 2028.” I told her I once opposed ending it, but it isn’t in the Constitution and elections have consequences. She agreed.
She opposes much of what President Trump has done but says Democrats should copy how he governs. “Trump has shown the way that you actually can get stuff done.” Without that, she warned, there is “going to be a massive revolution from their own base.” Her messaging advice is to “stop speaking like they’re in the faculty lounge.”
What If Democrats Lose the 2026 Midterms? Julie Roginsky on Party Reckoning
If Democrats lose, Roginsky says, there is no one else to blame. “They have a lot of soul searching to do,” she said, “because if you can’t win in this environment” and “there was no cheating in this election,” the loss would be theirs alone.
I asked whether she trusts polls showing Democrats ahead. She doesn’t. “I haven’t trusted the polls in a long time,” she said, “because you tell me who is sitting through a 15-minute poll. Nobody.” Her advice is “Just get out and vote.”
Focus groups, she said, show voters who are “disgusted with both sides” but “more disgusted with Republicans,” and want to “stick it to the people in power right now, which is what bodes well for Democrats in this election.”
Early voting also favors Democrats so far. Scripps News reported Oct. 23 that more than 21 million ballots were cast, about 46% from registered Democrats, 30% from Republicans and 23% from independents in states that report party, though early totals can’t show overall turnout.
Hakeem Jeffries, the DSA, and the Democratic Party Brand
Roginsky says the hardest job after Nov. 3 belongs to House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who must manage Medicare for All, which “swing voters are not so enthusiastic about,” and “this new swath of DSA candidates” who “want him to cut off all funding to Israel.”
Jeffries is already under pressure from the left and the DSA. The Washington Times, citing Axios reporting in March, said a growing number of House Democratic candidates would not commit to backing him as leader.
Roginsky is not a DSA member: “I am not a DSA Democrat by any stretch of imagination, the opposite.” But she understands the appeal. Republicans moved far right, she said, while Democrats kept splitting the difference. They are “like that grape in the middle where they get squashed all the time.”
On the socialist label, she pointed to history: “Franklin Roosevelt was accused of being a socialist and Lyndon Johnson was accused of being a socialist and now nobody wants to live without Medicare.”
Another place the DSA is gaining ground, she said, “it is impossible as a young person to prosper right now.” Of the DSA, she said, “maybe they’re not everybody’s cup of tea, but at least they’re talking about things that regular people can relate to.”
Israel Aid, Iran, and Foreign Policy in the 2026 Midterms
Last year, Roginsky told me, she took her family to Israel for her son’s bar mitzvah. In Tel Aviv, “that night the first Iran war began,” she said, and “we literally saw ballistic missiles being fired.” They took cover in a shelter, desperate to get out.
They eventually “fled for our lives under ballistic missile fire through the length of Israel to the Egyptian border,” she said and flew to London. “There were people who would have been dead were it not for the defensive weapons,” she said, “including me.”
On Michigan’s Senate race, The Forward reported in August that Democratic candidate Abdul El-Sayed opposes “unconditional foreign military aid to Israel,” including Iron Dome funding. Roginsky said demands like that will land on Jeffries’ desk.
She also described what she sees as a “horseshoe” in which strains of the far left and far right converge on Israel, citing Tucker Carlson and Nick Fuentes on the right. I said I believe the two ends are united by hatred of Jews, and she agreed. She was careful to add: “I don’t wanna say that all DSA people are like this.”
Julie and Adam on Fox News: Life After the “Death Star”
Roginsky and I met at Fox News, which I jokingly call the Death Star. She joined as a contributor in 2011 and left in 2017 while suing the network and its former CEO Roger Ailes, alleging he sought a sexual relationship in exchange for a hosting spot on “The Five,” as The Hill reported. At the end of the discussion Julie shares her thoughts on Kimberly Guilfoyle, our former FOX co-worker. Guilfoyle recently resigned from her position as the U.S. ambassador to Greece.
We spent part of the conversation on what we miss. “To this day I miss Fox a lot,” she said. “I miss the hair and makeup more than anything else.” I said I miss the free coffee. “The coffee was never good,” she said.
