Post-Election Forecast – Cloudy, With A Chance Of An End-Of-Days Deluge

No topic in political writing is riskier than election predictions – especially within a few weeks of an election – with publication just a few days before. Accordingly, this article focuses on what might happen next, in the months after the mid-term congressional elections and up to the opening of the 120th Congress on January 3, 2027.

Because the detailed outcome of the voting is obviously unknown as I write this, let’s make a key assumption: the Democrats win enough races to take control of the House, with a modest majority, which is more than likely. For purposes of argument, let’s set aside the Senate results. This is partly a matter of superstition – I don’t want to jinx it – but more that it doesn’t directly affect the scenario below for the House.

Assuming, also, that you’ve been paying attention to the course of this election, you’ve probably heard some variation of a “doomsday scenario,” in which by nefarious means, Trump and soon-to-be ex-Speaker Mike Johnson connive to deny rightful Representatives-elect (Democrats, of course) their seats in the House. How could that happen? Would it even work…and for how long?

Earlier versions have featured a sort of deus ex machina in which Johnson and the outgoing House majority somehow contrive a means to leverage alleged election fraud to deny Democrats their hard-earned, widely predicted turn at House leadership. Unfortunately – or maybe fortunately – for such nightmare schemes, the outgoing House has no authority to dictate who will replace them. The 119th Congress ends at noon on January 3rd, and the 120th cannot convene until a Speaker is elected. All Representatives-elect who have been certified by their respective states vote to elect a new Speaker, regardless of any challenges. Those challenges, and they could be legion by next January, can only be resolved after the House convenes under the new Speaker. At that point, much mischief may ensue – and indeed has, in past incidents cited to support the prospect of a “House coup” – but under a Speaker Jeffries, none of it is likely to change the balance of power.

A possible skeleton key, of sorts, emerged over the summer, in the hands of the Clerk of the House. In an article by Jeffery Toobin in the NY Times ("What’s the Worst Trump Can Do...," 7/27/26) in July, and expanded upon by former Appellate Judge J. Michael Luttig in the New Republic ("January 3, 2027 –  The Final Battle for America’s Democracy," 9/10/26) in September, the following scenario has gained serious attention[1], although not widespread credence:

1. Between November 3, 2026, and January 2027, the GOP challenges every House race won by a Democrat for which they can muster a pretext. Most of these fail in the mode of similar past efforts, but many remain.

2. Before the House reconvenes on January 3, Speaker Johnson fires the existing
   Clerk and replaces him, as he has authority to do, with a compliant toady as acting Clerk.

3. Said toady – and this is the tricky part – then refuses to recognize any of the Representatives-elect under challenge. As Luttig and others have pointed out (e.g., Garret Epps in the Washington Monthly ("Can the House Clerk Lead a Midterm Coup?" 9/16/26), this actually happened in the past, once successfully, although in exceptional conditions in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War. Mind you, under current law it is absolutely illegal and even unconstitutional, but as we’ve seen so many times in the past two years, that would be for the courts to enforce. Time then becomes a factor.

4. Before federal judges can issue the inevitable writs of mandamus to compel seating the duly-elected, the truncated House presumably votes to re-elect Johnson as Speaker and proceeds to rule in favor of seating GOP candidates in all the challenged races.

Now, the likelihood of this last move – a micro-coup unlike anything in our (post-Civil War) history – is hard to credit in even these hyper-polarized times. It would require a convergence of improbable events, culminating in a mass violation of newly-taken oaths of office, under the liability of enormous public opinion backlash, for virtually no political advantage. And recall, this GOP caucus took almost a week to elect a Speaker in the previous mid-term session.

Never mind Occam’s Razor, a breadknife would cut through this argument as easily as the proverbial butter. Even if it did happen, eventually the Superme Court would almost certainly quash it, as Luttig points out. As debased as the current Court’s credibility is now, not doing so would lower it below that of similar bodies in places like Russia, a risk they are unlikely to take.

The unfortunate reality is that Democratic majorities – even in both chambers – can do little by themselves to stop the lawless rampage that Trump has been on. Overturning his inevitable vetoes of their bills would actually be harder, on a partisan basis, than impeaching and convicting him. Why would GOP legislators, who still have to face voters in two more years, take such a risky, extreme action as this “weird old trick” to retain only a notional degree of power?

Luttig himself is clear-eyed about these limitations yet focuses on improbable consequences of the House being in disarray, even temporarily. He labels this a “paralyzing constitutional crisis,” that leaves the country “helplessly vulnerable” to opportunistic offenses by adversaries, such as China having its way with Taiwan, or Russia with Estonia. This unfortunately lends credence to critics’ description of this scenario as “electoral disaster porn.”

And yet, even among the most skeptical critics[2] of Luttig and Toobin’s scenario, no one seems prepared to rule it out entirely. That might be due partly to the humiliating failures of imagination that preceded January 6th, 2021, but also Trump’s ongoing employment of overwhelming chaos as an operating principle.

Steve Bannon infamously called it “flooding the zone,” but it might be more evocatively called pasta tactics. While very little has stuck to the wall so far, the growing accumulation on the floor, metaphorically approaching knee height, makes it hard to move at all.

Whether overreaching on consequences or dismissively deriding the improbabilities, commentators on both sides miss the key point: this is probably only one element of a tsunami of chaos that the GOP will use to counter the probable Blue Wave (apologies for the intermixed metaphors). With only 65% of Americans confident that the elections will be fair and accurately counted, there is a lot of potential for electoral confusion fomented by Republicans. Bear in mind, the chaos won’t slow down Trump and his drive towards authoritarian rule, but it will make it more difficult for the opposition to organize and ties them up fending off diversions and disputes.

With the only practical recourse until 2029 in the hands of the courts, congressional Democrats must raise the current momentum turning public opinion against the Administration. Let’s hope they keep the pressure on both in the House and, fingers crossed, in the Senate.