Will Operation Epic Fury Affect the Midterm Elections? 

The midterms are now seven months away. The election basics remain the same as a month ago. Democrats look poised to retake control of the House of Representatives, while Republicans are favored to retain their majority in the Senate. The one big change since last month was the start of Operation Epic Fury. Could it scramble the conventional wisdom on what will happen in November?

The answer to that question depends on how long the fighting lasts and how it ends. As things stand now, a majority of Americans opposes Operation Epic Fury. Should the war end in two to three weeks with gas prices quickly falling to pre-war levels, as President Donald Trump predicted in his address to the nation Wednesday night, then Operation Epic Fury will likely be quickly forgotten by most voters. They care far more about what happens at home than about what happens overseas. As George H.W. Bush discovered firsthand with the Gulf War, even a decisive U.S. victory would not alter that dynamic.  

The problem for Republicans is that the war might drag on longer than Trump says. He has a long history of offering two-week predictions that never materialize. His Wednesday address seemingly dismissed the idea of seizing Iran’s enriched uranium, an operation that would require sending substantial numbers of U.S. troops into Iran. But he might still decide to act on his threat to seize Kharg Island, Iran’s major oil export terminal, in a bid to force Iran to sue for peace. Putting U.S. troops on the ground would give Democrats a campaign issue and test the strong support that Trump’s MAGA base has shown thus far for Operation Epic Fury. 

Iran also has a say in whether and when the war ends. Tehran could conclude that it benefits more than it loses from prolonged fighting. That might sound perverse given the damage Iran has suffered and will continue to suffer as U.S. and Israeli airstrikes continue. But the new, harder-line leadership in Tehran may calculate that the passage of time will make Trump more eager to strike a deal. The regime is already benefiting from higher oil prices and relaxed U.S. sanctions.  

Even if Operation Epic Fury ends quickly, its ripple effects could be felt for months. The sticking point is the Strait of Hormuz, through which one fifth of the world’s oil flows. Contrary to what Trump said on Wednesday night, the strait may not “open up naturally” even if the United States unilaterally ends its airstrikes. Tehran knows it has leverage. It may insist that shippers or customers pay a toll to get their oil and gas through the strait. 

It is tempting to dismiss that possibility as someone else’s problem. After all, as Trump has said repeatedly, the United States is largely self-sufficient when it comes to oil and gas. But oil is traded on a global market. So supply shortages elsewhere in the world drive up prices. That is why the cost of a gallon of gas has spiked across the United States over the past month even as U.S. oil production has continued without interruption. 

In all, Operation Epic Fury poses a higher political risk to Republican candidates than to Democratic ones. The war may ultimately have no impact on the midterms. Many things can happen between now and November. But if Operation Epic Fury does have an effect, it will likely be to put more Republican seats in both the House and Senate at risk. 

Numbers to Note

Midterm elections are often referenda on the sitting president. On that score, Trump remains upside down in his overall approval rating, with polls showing that on average 39.7 percent of Americans approve of the job he is doing, with 56.6 percent disapproving. That’s a slight deterioration from last month when his approval rating was 42 percent. Trump’s current numbers leave him with a net approval rating of -16.9 points, the largest that number has been so far in his second term.

As of today, fifty-seven House members have announced that they are either retiring or running for other offices in November. That is up five from a month ago. All the new departing members are Republicans. So thirty-six Republicans are now leaving the House voluntarily, compared to twenty-one Democrats. To repeat the general rule, open seats are easier for the party out of power to win. 

On the other side of Capitol Hill, eleven incumbent senators have decided not to run for reelection. That is up two from last month. The two newest departures are both Republicans, Alan Armstrong of Oklahoma and Steve Daines of Montana. Armstrong’s decision requires an asterisk. Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt appointed Armstrong to the Senate in the wake of Senator Markwayne Mullin’s resignation to become secretary of homeland security. Oklahoma law requires individuals appointed to the Senate to pledge not to run for election to a full term. Seven Republican senators and four Democratic senators are now departing voluntarily. 

The generic congressional ballot has Democrats with a 5.5-point lead over Republicans. That is essentially unchanged since last month. That said, neither political party is particularly popular. A CNN poll released his morning found that just 28 percent of Americans view the Democratic Party favorably, while 32 percent view the Republican Party favorably. A quarter of Americans, so-called double haters, dislike both political parties.  

The CNN poll does contain some good news for Democrats. First, voters in the double-hater group favor the Democratic candidate in the midterms by thirty-one percentage points. To win in politics, you do not need to run the ideal candidate, you just need to run one who is preferable to the alternative candidate. Second, Democratic and Democratic-leaning registered voters were seventeen points likelier than their Republican counterparts to say they are extremely motivated to vote. That enthusiasm gap owes a lot to Democrats’ dislike of Trump. Nearly eight-in-ten Democratic and Democratic-leaning voters say they will be voting to send a message of opposition to Trump.

All these CNN numbers should be interpreted with care. CNN polled “registered voters” and not the subset of “likely voters.” Polls of those two groups may not mirror one another, and political parties for obvious reasons care more about the latter group than the former. 

Gallup’s latest quarterly report on party affiliation has similar good news for Democrats and bad news for Republicans. The share of voters identifying as Democrats or Democratic-leaning independents hit a five-year high in the first quarter of 2026. Meanwhile, the share of voters identifying as Republican or Republican-leaning independents hit an eleven-year low. This quarter, just 39 percent of Americans told Gallup that they lean red, compared to the 49 percent who said they lean blue.

While the numbers on presidential approval, voluntary departures, the generic ballot, voter enthusiasm, and leaned party ID are all encouraging for Democrats, professional Congress watchers do not see a Blue Tsunami sweeping across Capitol Hill in November. Geoffrey Skelley of Decision Desk HQ sees at most twenty-six Republican House seats at risk. Larry Sabato’s Crystal Ball rates thirteen House GOP seats as toss-ups, while it sees three seats currently held by Democrats as good bets to go Republican. Nathan Gonzalez with Inside Elections sees six GOP seats as toss-ups and two tilting Democratic, while four Democratic seats are at risk of going Republican. The number of seats at risk is so low in good part because both parties have become adept at gerrymandering. So the betting money, for now, is that November will not produce a result like the sixty-three seats Democrats lost in 2010, let alone rival the all-time mark set by Democrats in 1894 when they lost an astounding 116 House seats.

News to Note

The New York Times’ Erica Green detailed the explanation Trump gave of why he opposes mail-in voting but nonetheless voted by mail earlier this month in a special election in Florida.  

ScotusBlog’s Amy Howe reviewed how Supreme Court justices reacted to the oral arguments made in Watson v. Republican National Committee, which challenges the legality of counting mail-in ballots received after Election Day even if they are postmarked by that date. The plaintiffs argued that federal law implicitly requires all mail-in ballots be received by Election Day to be counted. A federal appeals court has already ruled for the plaintiffs. The Supreme Court’s ruling is expected by early July. If the Supreme Court does find for the plaintiff, the limit on mail-in voting will likely go into effect for the November midterms.  

NOTUS’s Amelia Benavides-Colón reviewed the executive order that Trump released on Tuesday night purporting to mandate “citizenship verification and integrity in federal elections.” Among other things, the executive order directs the Department of Homeland Security to create a list of eligible voters in every state. States would then need to use the federally supplied list to determine who can vote. Expect the legality of the executive order to be challenged in court.  

Lawfare’s Anna Bower and Molly Roberts assessed the legal arguments made by some conservative activists that if Trump declared a national emergency, he would gain sweeping legal authority to oversee the midterm elections. 

Oscar Berry assisted in the preparation of this article.