On November 26, 2025, Donald Trump ordered the deployment of an additional 500 military personnel to the capital. On the same day, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services announced the suspension of accepting immigration applications from all citizens of Afghanistan.
The administration’s actions were a consequence of an incident involving an attack by an Afghan citizen on National Guard members who were deployed in Washington in accordance with a presidential executive order.
The White House’s reaction to the events in Washington was an attempt by the administration to reorient the American domestic political discourse toward issues where the Trump team still maintains a high level of public trust.
Amid the systematic weakening of public support for the President and the Republican Party as a whole, the administration is seeking tools capable of partially compensating for electoral losses caused by economic problems in the country.
According to a Reuters/Ipsos study, only 26% of respondents believe that the Trump administration is properly addressing the rising cost of living.
The most critical assessment of the U.S. economy was expressed by citizens whose household annual income is less than $50,000—among these respondents, who make up more than 30% of U.S. citizens overall, 79% of those surveyed have an unfavorable view of the country’s economic situation.
A Fox News poll conducted in mid-November 2025 showed that about 76% of American voters negatively evaluate the state of the economy, although at the end of President Biden’s term, 70% of respondents expressed skepticism about economic results, and in July 2025—67% of them.
Despite a temporary acceleration of U.S. GDP growth in the second quarter of 2025, which amounted to 3.8%, its annual increase for 2025 is projected at 1.2%. Such annual figures will be the worst since 2021, as in the previous political cycle, the U.S. economy demonstrated growth ranging from 6.1% to 2.5% per year.
A real demonstration of the slowdown in the American economy was the U.S. labor market. During April-June 2025, the number of jobs in the country grew monthly by an average of 55,000, while in the third quarter of 2025—by 51,000 per month, which is significantly below expected rates.
Forecasts indicated that from July to October 2025, the U.S. economy was supposed to create up to 73,000 jobs monthly, but in August 2025, the American labor market formed only 22,000 new vacancies.
As a result of the fact that the actual volumes of job growth did not meet forecasts, the unemployment rate in the country increased. While in 2022-2023 this indicator remained at 3.6% and rose to 4% by the end of 2024, in August 2025, the U.S. had 4.3% unemployed population.
Unfavorable economic trends were exacerbated by rising prices for energy and food, as well as increases in the cost of services. More than two-thirds of voters indicate that they have experienced increases in expenses for utilities, healthcare, and housing.
The deterioration of these indicators has deprived the White House of the ability to effectively convince voters of the effectiveness of the Trump team’s economic policy.
The combination of economic problems directly translates into a decline in the President’s personal rating and the level of trust in the Republican Party as a force capable of ensuring stable governance of the country.
Throughout the fall of 2025, Fox News polls recorded a 5% reduction in the level of approval by U.S. citizens of the White House’s work—according to these sociologists, only 41% of American voters positively evaluate Trump’s performance in his position, while 58% have a negative attitude toward his work.
Since the beginning of November 2025, Gallup, Fox News surveys, and the RealClearPolitics aggregator have reported the lowest level of support for Trump throughout his current term.
The loss of voter trust in White House policy is provoking electoral problems for the Republican Party ahead of the 2026 midterm congressional elections.
During the special election in Tennessee’s 7th congressional district on December 2, 2025, Republican candidate Matt Van Epps defeated his Democratic opponent Aftin Behn by only 9%.
In contrast, during the 2024 congressional elections in the same district, the Republican candidate won by more than 21% over the Democratic nominee, and Donald Trump’s support among district residents in 2024 exceeded Kamala Harris’s votes by 22%.
The reduction in public approval of Republican politicians in conservative districts correlates with a nationwide trend. Since March 2025, RealClear Polling data have shown a stable Democratic Party advantage over Republicans in Senate and House elections.
As of December 5, 2025, Democrats are ahead of the Republican Party by an average of 4.9% of votes, which is the highest level of Democratic advantage over Republicans since the 2024 general elections.
The approaching 2026 midterm elections significantly reduces the time resources for correcting the economic situation, which remains the main criterion for voters in evaluating the effectiveness of the government and a key factor in the voting of independent electorate.
An AP poll conducted in states where a series of local and special elections took place in the fall of 2025 showed that for most voters, the determining factor in forming political preferences was the socio-economic situation of their family and the state as a whole.
Thus, 49% of voters in Virginia indicated that the most important issue in their state is the economic situation. Respondents in New Jersey consider tax (36%) and economic policy (32%) the most pressing challenges, and for 56% of New York City residents, the sharpest issue is the cost of living.
The socio-economic dissatisfaction of American voters, which is increasingly directed against the current administration and Donald Trump personally, is becoming a universal way for the Democratic Party to mobilize its potential supporters and independent voters.
As early as the summer of 2025, Gallup studies recorded the lowest level of support for the President among citizens who are not registered as voters of any party.
In the first half of 2025, Trump’s approval rating among independent voters decreased by 17%, which became the main factor in the reduction of overall support for the U.S. leader’s activities.
The presidential administration faces the need to neutralize dissatisfaction with the White House’s economic policy, which prompts it to place greater emphasis on security decisions capable of creating a sense of stability and manageability of the domestic political situation for voters.
Although ahead of the 2024 elections, 90% of American citizens recognized the economy as one of the most important criteria for choosing a candidate, more than 80% of respondents also considered the President’s ability to ensure security and counter terrorism a key issue.
Additionally, 72% of voters viewed the leader’s capability to limit uncontrolled migration as a critical factor.
The relevance of migration and crime-fighting issues has significantly decreased for the American electorate throughout 2025. Only 32% of New Yorkers, 16% of Virginia residents, and 10% of New Jersey respondents considered these issues determining factors when electing candidates in the November 2025 local elections.
At the same time, lacking the ability to neutralize the public dissatisfaction caused by economic problems, the administration is proposing initiatives and decisions that traditionally provide the Republican Party with more stable support among conservative voters.
The attack by an Afghan citizen on National Guard members occurred amid broader polarization of American society and the activation of violence for political and ethnic reasons.
This incident gave the administration an opportunity to return security issues to the center of public discourse and gain additional legitimacy for tougher decisions in migration policy.
At the end of November 2025, Donald Trump stated that his administration would cancel all federal benefits and subsidies for non-citizens, and also announced the implementation of other measures to stop migration from Global South countries.
Such statements continued the White House’s course toward gradual tightening of migration restrictions, which even before the incident in the District of Columbia manifested in the reduction of temporary protection programs for natives of Venezuela, Haiti, Somalia, and Afghanistan.
The review of previously considered applications for refugee status, the reduction of quotas for their acceptance by the United States in 2026, as well as the suspension of consideration of any applications for asylum in the USA, solidified the transition to a model aimed at containing migration flows.
Although significant public and media attention to the attack on military personnel activated political discussion regarding the acceptability of American migration policy, the administration failed to change the overall structure of public priorities.
The White House’s attempts to strengthen security measures consolidate conservative voters around the Republican Party, who traditionally approve of the administration’s tough migration decisions.
The impact of the measures announced by the Trump administration on political support from the independent electorate remains minimal.
According to a Gallup poll, migration and security policy were of primary importance for 11% and 7% of citizens who do not associate themselves with any political party, and therefore—the attempt to compensate for the reduction in support through announcing new measures in this area will continue to fail.
In contrast, initiatives aimed at advancing the Republican security agenda cause dissatisfaction among the electorate oriented toward Democrats, whose political leaders are increasingly attempting to infiltrate political demands into the U.S. protest discourse.
In November 2025, it became known that the Soros family-affiliated network of Open Society Foundations directed $250,000 to support the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH)—a British organization that positions itself as a structure for preventing discrimination and disinformation in the online sector.
CCDH, founded by British Labour Party political strategist Imran Ahmed, primarily counters American conservative-oriented media resources.
These resources, after the attack on military personnel in the District of Columbia, transformed coverage of the incident into an informational pretext for intensifying criticism of Democrats and legitimizing maximum migration restrictions.
Limiting the influence of such media platforms has become a fundamental task for the progressive faction of Democrats and the donor structures associated with them.
Since conservative resources are working to transform the themes of migration and internal security into a tool for electoral mobilization of conservative voters, progressive elites are trying to establish additional restrictions for online media that shape these narratives.
The media’s reaction to the attack in Washington demonstrated that both progressives and conservatives are activating the struggle for media influence on voters.
They are competing for the ability to convert public attention to economic problems, instances of political and ethnic violence, as well as migration challenges, into a way to attract electoral clusters to their side in the 2026 election cycle.
Despite the struggle of progressive Democrats and their donors for influence over the media sphere, the effect of the White House’s security and migration decisions is currently unable to compensate for the loss of voter trust in areas directly related to the cost of living, job accessibility, taxes, and economic growth.
The actions of the Trump administration aimed at reducing immigration provide the Republican Party with support from conservatively minded citizens, but do not reduce the demotivation of the independent electorate, whose choice will primarily be influenced by the administration’s ability to slow down inflationary indicators.
Low GDP growth rates, labor market slowdown, and inflation growth throughout 2026 will cause further electoral losses for Republicans in competitive districts, the results in which will determine the administration’s ability to maintain control over Congress in the second half of Trump’s term.
Since the main factor for victory in such districts is the preferences of independent voters, the pre-election struggle will continue for their support throughout all of 2026.
Economic problems in the USA, which are primarily associated with the decisions of the Trump administration, have given the Democratic Party the opportunity to direct the growing political tension and polarization within society toward issues where its positions and arguments are perceived by voters as more convincing.
Although the basis for the transformation of public sentiments in the USA is the inflationary crisis and the deterioration of population welfare, Democratic elites, and primarily progressive leaders, are successfully infiltrating their own political demands into the protest agenda.
The issues of cost of living, accessibility of social services, and economic inequality, which Democrats actively communicated during the November 2025 local elections, are now becoming the basis for electoral mobilization of voters in the midterm elections.
At the same time, the Democratic Party and its stable donors are waging a struggle for control over the information environment, the influence on which will determine which political force succeeds in offering the voter a more convincing interpretation of socio-political events.
The 2026 political campaign will determine how capable the presidential administration is, through stabilization measures in the economy and increasing public attention to migration and security policy, of restoring the level of support for the Republican Party necessary to retain a majority in the Senate.
On the other hand, the Trump administration’s ability to demonstrate manageability of the domestic political situation, combining economic stability with consistent security policy, will directly affect Washington’s preservation of its global leadership in the democratic bloc.
The ability of American institutions to overcome internal socio-economic challenges and maintain control over key security processes becomes a factor of trust in the USA among Washington’s allies.
In parallel, such capability remains an indicator of the United States’ readiness to effectively counter autocracies’ attempts to expand their influence through political pressure, information operations, and other tools aimed at weakening the positions of democratic states.
The ways in which the Republican administration responds to economic imbalances, political polarization, and migration challenges in 2026 will simultaneously determine the consequences of the midterm elections and the position of Republicans in the next Congress, as well as the preservation of the United States’ leading role in the democratic bloc.
