What Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York calls the “Trump effect” could determine the outcome of the midterm elections, for better or for worse.
“Almost everything in the past eight years can be described in terms of Donald Trump, and I think that this Democratic turnout increase is a Trump effect,” York said on Fox News’s The Will Cain Show on Tuesday.
York talked about an early Democratic turnout in terms of Tuesday’s Democratic primaries. In New York, candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D-NY) won highly contested congressional primaries.
York said the political impact of a Democratic socialist’s endorsement may reveal how Trump has reshaped voter perceptions.
“There is no doubt that the president is able to get his own voters to go to the polls, but he has really been able to get his opponents’ voters to go to the polls,” York said.
York said the outcome of the November election remains unclear.
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“You have some factors that really point to a Democratic victory in November — the president’s job approval rating, the so-called generic ballot history — and then you have other factors that suggest it’s going to be a little bit closer, maybe a lot closer,” York said.
York argued that it doesn’t seem like voters “have a system that leads to big, blowout midterm elections anymore,” meaning even a Democratic victory could still end with “a close-fought House for the next two years.”