It cannot be said that Donald Trump did not know. In the first days of the year, just after kidnapping Nicolás Maduro, the US president addressed Republican legislators at an annual event at the Kennedy Center in Washington. "They say that when you win the presidency, you lose the midterm elections. I wish you could explain to me what the hell goes through people's minds," he said then. Nine months later, Trump is probably still asking himself the same thing as projections inflate Democratic hopes.

The mid-term elections arrive at the end of a year that began at a fast pace: the military incursion into Venezuela and the kidnapping of the Chavista leader Nicolás Maduro, the murder of two United States citizens at the hands of ICE and the start of the Iran war and the inability to put an end to another major war, that of Ukraine. All of this happened between January 3rd and February 28th. Since then, the great single issue has been the campaign in the Middle East and, above all, the rising price of gasoline, which has only worsened the cost of living for many households. These are the issues that will most mark the vote of United States citizens in crucial mid-term elections, which are also interpreted as a test for Donald Trump.

The electoral campaign for the midterm elections is coming to an end and marks the beginning of Donald Trump's political decline. Although it is not the first time the Republican seems to be heading down the path of ostracism – as already happened with the attack on the Capitol – this time it seems that Americans have taken note. A good part of society that decided to give the tycoon a second chance has encountered a much more aggressive rebound effect: Trump returned to the White House with a plan to erode the checks and balances on his power and has applied it methodically.

A few days ago, former President Barack Obama participated in a campaign rally for one of the emerging figures of the Democratic Party, the candidate for Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. It would have been an odd couple considering that El-Sayed, in his youth, had criticized the policies of his fellow party member, considering them too soft. In a display of veteran savvy and elegance, Obama did not try to hide the discrepancy: "Abdul did not agree with some of the things our administration did when I was president. And do you know who else doesn't agree with everything I do? Michelle Obama. Five times a day she tells me, 'Fool, why did you do that?'" The audience reacted with laughter that built a bridge between the old and the new Democratic Party.

One of the reasons why Donald Trump obtained the vote of many Latinos and Hispanics in the presidential election two years ago is that he knew how to build a difference between supposedly "good and bad" immigrants. Many of the Latinos who voted for him did so feeling that they were in the "good" group. Also hoping that he would lower the cost of living. But the Republican's support among the Latino community also rested on another leg: those who, disappointed with the Democrats, did not go to vote.

Two years in politics is a long time. Two years with Donald Trump in power have been almost an eternity for the United States. And, technically, it has not yet been two full years (the Republican was inaugurated on January 20, 2025), but the speed with which he has rolled out his agenda has thrown time into disarray. Trump has turned the country upside down from the inside out. In a way, everything has changed – trade war, war with Iran, the terror of ICE, the honeymoon with big tech – so that nothing changes: every day it is harder to fill the shopping cart for many families.

Donald Trump returned to power nearly two years ago, driven by the disillusionment among a good portion of Americans with Joe Biden, who felt that he had failed to listen to their discontent. The current shift to the left within the Democratic Party is also challenging a dissatisfaction among the base towards an establishment that already failed to inspire them in 2024. The feeling that Washington does not understand the concerns of ordinary people is often materialized in a very concrete fact: an aging political class.

The Democrats have achieved an unusual scenario in these midterm elections: shaking the Republican supremacy in Texas and Kansas. If the party has penetrated into Trump territory, it is because the profiles leading the candidacies for the Senate in both states are not common either: a Presbyterian pastor, James Talarico, and the chaplain of a Methodist megachurch, Adam Hamilton. It is strange to see religious figures at the center of Democratic campaigns, but that is precisely what is happening in these legislative elections, and it seems to be working.

The latest Federal Reserve (the Fed, the United States central bank) meeting could not have come at a worse time, both for Donald Trump and for its chair, Kevin Warsh. One week before the elections, the Fed has decided to keep interest rates in the same range of between 3.75% and 4% after having decided to raise them at the previous meeting for the first time since 2023.

Far-right leader Flávio Bolsonaro is flying to the United States, after fleeing Brazil amidst his electoral defeat to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. According to various Brazilian media outlets and the Reuters agency, Bolsonaro entered Argentina this Tuesday night (at 3 a.m.), accompanied by his wife and two daughters, via the Tancredo Neves International Bridge, which crosses the Iguaçu River and connects Brazil with Argentina. From there, he took a private flight on the Baires Fly company heading to Guayaquil, Ecuador, and at 11 a.m., he took off heading to Miami.

The Democrats are at that sweet spot where everything can still happen and there is almost no room for disappointment. With polls inflating hopes of even gaining control of the Senate, former President Barack Obama has gone into campaign mode to provide the final push for one of the faces of the moment: the Democratic candidate for the Senate for Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed. The appearance of one of the party's heavyweights with the progressive candidate in Detroit confirms the moment of change the party is experiencing, both externally and internally. As Obama has proclaimed, «change is in the air».

Democrats are looking to rediscover their voice ahead of the November 3 midterm elections. Beyond serving as a referendum on Donald Trump, the vote could mark a turning point for a party struggling to resolve its identity crisis. The midterms offer Democrats their first real opportunity to reconnect with a disillusioned base in the wake of their 2024 electoral defeat.

The United States has ordered the withdrawal of some of its diplomatic personnel stationed in Saudi Arabia, one of its main allies in the Middle East, following attacks by Houthi militias from Yemen. The petromonarchy suffers constant attacks from this group allied with Iran, such as the one this Wednesday night that left one dead and eight injured at the King Fahd International Airport in Dammam, in the east of the country. Families of personnel at American embassies in the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, Qatar, and Bahrain are also being evacuated.

California, the great progressive bastion that represents a substantial part of the Democrats' parliamentary pie, has become the main target of Donald Trump's electoral interference. Two weeks before the midterms, the US administration has executed what it has dubbed "Operation Protect the Vote," which is aimed at reinforcing its theories of electoral fraud regarding the existence of undocumented people who vote for the Democrats. It also fuels the idea that there are still people on the electoral rolls who are already dead or who moved to other states.

Uncertainty has taken hold of the Donald Trump United States electoral events, and the midterm elections of November 3rd are no exception. Concern over any possible attempt by the U.S. president to interfere in the elections has led thousands of volunteers to train for what might happen on November 3rd: from a possible deployment of ICE agents to the White House's attempt to challenge the results in some districts. "Authoritarians feed on fear, and the way to combat it is by organizing people," explains Jessica Acee, organizer of States at the Core (STAC), to ARA, a pro-democracy group that has trained more than 50,000 volunteers for the upcoming elections.

Katie Zacharia will go down in history as one of the White House Press secretaries who has held the position for the least amount of time. Three days after debuting with a very brief and hesitant appearance, Donald Trump has decided to fire her. Publicly, the US president told reporters this Friday that Zacharia should reconsider her position. "I don't think Katie should have to suffer as she suffers at the hands of the press," said the Republican. Although he presented it as an option, government sources have revealed to the New York Times that they have already fired her.

The war in Iran could still escalate further. The United States is considering a new wave of attacks against Iranian nuclear infrastructure in which they would use the "mother of all bombs," according to several government sources revealed to CNN. The model in question is the GBU-43/B MOAB, a massive GPS-guided air-blast bomb that constitutes the largest non-nuclear projectile in the United States military arsenal.

Donald Trump announced this Thursday that the Pentagon will not live-stream the firing squad execution of former military psychiatrist Nidal Malik Hasan, who was convicted of killing 13 people in a 2009 shooting at the Fort Hood military base in Texas. Last week, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said that the execution, scheduled for December 3, would be live-streamed on the internet to teach a lesson.

The Federal Maritime Commission (FMC) of the United States proposed this Wednesday that a series of sanctions be applied against Spanish vessels as punishment for Madrid's blockade on arms shipments to Israel. In its stance against the genocide in Gaza, Pedro Sánchez's executive denied in 2024 the use of its ports to transport weaponry to Tel Aviv.

The White House has a press secretary again. Without barely looking up from the lectern and with an appearance much briefer than those her predecessor, Karoline Leavitt, used to make, Katie Zacharia debuted this Tuesday as the new spokesperson for the Donald Trump administration. The 41-year-old woman made her first appearance just after the US president announced over the weekend that he already had a new replacement for Leavitt.