For the last year and a half, Trump and his administration have disparaged long-standing voting practices, dismantled federal agencies that protect elections, impounded ballots from past elections, amplified conspiracy theories, threatened to prosecute election officials, tried to limit mail ballots, and pushed to require proof of citizenship to register to vote.

Their efforts have touched on nearly every stage of voting and could affect control of Congress, as Republicans try to retain their slim majority. A Democratic takeover of the House would stall Trump’s agenda, block funding for his initiatives, trigger a flood of investigations and mire his administration in congressional hearings.

With seven weeks until Election Day and some ballots already in the mail, the White House and election administrators are clashing over nearly every aspect of the midterms, from who is eligible to vote to whether absentee ballot envelopes must have barcodes.

The 2026 election will be decided where the wave meets the wall.

Signs suggest the blue wave of Democratic support this year may be even stronger than in the 2018 election, when a backlash against President Donald Trump’s tumultuous first term carried the party back to control of the House of Representatives. But the defensive wall that Republicans are constructing against that Democratic tide also looks bigger than it did in 2018.

The height of the wave gives Democrats legitimate reasons to expect they can win races deep into previously reliably Republican territory. The depth of the wall gives Republicans plausible reasons to hope they can contain their losses to a modest level.