The Midterm Races That Could Set The Stage For Next Presidential Election

There’s a lot more on the ballot this year than which party will control Congress. 

While critical Senate and House races have received most of the attention heading into Election Day, Democrats could also take total control of state government in five battleground states. A shift in power could have a far reaching impact on future presidential elections and how voting is conducted in those states, conservative watchdog Honest Elections Project warned in a report first obtained by The Daily Wire. 

“This November, voters in five states will decide more than who governs for the next two or four years. They will decide what rules will govern the 2028 presidential election,” the watchdog wrote in a report released Tuesday. “Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin are perennial presidential battlegrounds with 61 electoral votes between them. Each has divided government today but could become a Democrat trifecta on November 3rd.”

Those states, all won by President Donald Trump in 2024, currently have divided governments in which at least one party controls one of the legislative branches or the governor’s office. Of the states, only Nevada currently has a Republican governor. In the upcoming election, Democrat incumbents are defending their office in Arizona and Pennsylvania while Democrat Governors Gretchen Whitmer in Michigan is term-limited and Wisconsin Democrat Governor Tony Evers is not seeking re-election.

CHECK OUT THE DAILY WIRE MIDTERM HUB

The Honest Elections Project pointed to the example of a Democrat trifecta in Virginia to show how state races can impact election integrity. After taking full control of Virginia state government in 2026, Democrats passed laws to expand ranked-choice voting, relax standards around mail-in voting, and join the constitutionally questionable National Popular Vote Interstate Compact.

The compact involves states pledging to delegate their electoral votes to the winner of the national popular vote instead of the candidate selected at the state level. Over a dozen Democrat-leaning states have already signed onto the measure which would have jeopardized Trump’s presidential victory in 2016. 

“The compact purportedly takes effect at 270, so its members need just 48 more electoral votes. New Democratic trifectas in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Arizona alone — all at risk in November — could carry the compact to 267,” the report warned. “Either Wisconsin or Nevada would finish the job before the 2028 presidential election.”

The Honest Elections Project referred to the compact as an attempt to neutralize the Electoral College and “permanently weight presidential elections in favor of the biggest states and heavily liberal metropolitan areas.”

“In divided states like Arizona, Michigan, Nevada, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin, a Democratic victory would mean California- and Virginia-style voting ‘reforms’ adopted almost overnight,” the report found. “When voters head to the polls this November they will be voting for more than governors and senators — they may well decide the future of free and fair elections in America.”

The report also analyzed the 419 election-related bills passed into law across the country by August 2026. Of the new laws, 223 were passed by states with total Republican control while 158 were passed in states with Democrat control. The report found that Republican laws focused on citizenship verification, voter roll accuracy, voter ID provisions, and bans on ranked-choice voting while Democrat laws include automatic voter registration and relaxing laws surrounding mail-in voting. 

“Each of the major Democratic priorities pushes the same way. State voting rights acts move election rules out of legislatures and into court,” the report found. “Automatic registration adds names to the rolls without a voter’s request, and often without adequate verification to stop error or fraud. Mail balloting moves voting out of supervised settings and puts more ballots in the hands of the postal service.”

While state legislators often are able to advance election-related legislation, federal lawmakers rarely make progress. Legislation backed by Trump which would have required proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections passed the House earlier this year, but stalled out in the Senate.

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