The following is an analysis from A.J. Simmons, Research Director of the Center for State Policy and Leadership at UIS.
A phrase that some are using to describe the 2026 election is the "Midterms of Rage." However, the story of American politics driven by voter anger didn't begin this year.
To understand this political moment, we need to go back nearly two decades to the Great Recession.
The story of the last two decades isn't one of Americans steadily moving left or right. It's the story of voters repeatedly searching for candidates who promise to challenge a political system they increasingly believe has stopped working for the average American, yet failing to find anyone who can rise to that challenge.
While today's politics of dissatisfaction has deeper roots going back to the 80s and 90s, the 2000s financial crisis accelerated a long-running erosion of public trust in political institutions that continues to shape American politics today.
In 2008, voters were deeply dissatisfied with the federal government's response to the economic crisis, and faith in government fell to just 7 percent, an all-time low. Signs of this political shift appeared during the 2008 election.
On the Democratic side, Barack Obama successfully ran as the candidate of "hope" and "change," presenting himself as someone who would challenge a political system many voters believed had failed them. Although many factors contributed to Obama's victory, widespread dissatisfaction with the government's response to the financial crisis contributed to an appetite for candidates promising something different.
On the Republican side, Ron Paul's insurgent presidential campaign tapped into growing conservative distrust of the Republican political establishment, echoing some themes first seen in Ross Perot's 1992 campaign.
That optimism faded quickly as many Americans concluded that neither party had done enough to help ordinary people recover from the recession and instead felt like they benefited financial elites. Rather than restoring faith in government, the recovery left many voters even more skeptical of the American political establishment.
Because Obama and Democrats more broadly had run on fixing things, voters felt especially let down, which contributed to greater political disaffection. Even some former Obama administration officials have reached a similar conclusion.
Rahm Emanuel recently argued that the administration did not do enough to address the economic fallout from the Great Recession, which contributed to broader public dissatisfaction with the American system. His reflection underscores how participants, not just academics or journalists, from that era continue to view the recession as a turning point in American politics.
That frustration fueled two of the defining political movements of the early 2010s. Although they differed dramatically in ideology, organization, and policy priorities, both reflected widespread frustration with the existing political system.
On the right, the Tea Party emerged in 2009, helping insurgent Republican candidates defeat more established figures in the 2010 congressional midterms, and operated more like a third party. The relationship between voter anger over Great Recession policies and the Tea Party is not a retrospective explanation and was offered going into the 2010 election.
On the left, dissatisfaction eventually found expression in Occupy Wall Street, which spread nationally in 2011 and connected with similar movements worldwide. While the Tea Party often chose to operate within the Republican Party structure, Occupy operated outside of the Democratic Party.
In October 2011, a majority of Americans viewed Occupy favorably, while another sizable share viewed the Tea Party favorably. Together, those numbers suggest that many Americans found something appealing in both movements despite their very different ideologies. That “something” appears to have been dissatisfaction with the American system.
That dissatisfaction did not disappear as both movements lost steam. Voters seemed not to be searching for a particular philosophy or ideology as much as someone who promised to challenge a political system they believed had stopped working.
By 2016, the dissatisfaction had largely coalesced into two major insurgent movements in both parties. Bernie Sanders challenged the Democratic establishment from the left, while Donald Trump captured the Republican nomination with his brand of populist politics.
Although Sanders lost the Democratic nomination and Trump won the Republican one, both campaigns drew support from voters frustrated with the American system. Further evidence of the 2008 economic crisis’s impact on voter frustrations is that counties hit hardest by the Great Recession often became fertile ground for both campaigns.
Some Sanders supporters ultimately voted for Trump in the general election, with particularly important totals in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. While that crossover surprised many observers, it makes more sense when viewed through the lens of politics of voter dissatisfaction rather than traditional left-right ideology.
Trump’s election did not mark the end of voter dissatisfaction with American politics. For example, progressive insurgents, such as members of the Squad, defeated Democratic incumbents in 2018.
Further, Bernie Sanders ran another competitive presidential campaign in 2020, while President Trump continued to portray himself as an outsider fighting against the failed system…despite occupying the White House.
The COVID-19 pandemic further eroded trust in institutions, contributing to a period marked by widespread protests, intense political polarization, electoral conspiracies, and ultimately the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
By the 2020 elections, Trump's insurgent political message had become harder to sustain while serving as president. This pattern isn't unique to the United States. Yesterday's outsider often becomes today's insider.
As insurgent candidates take office, many voters eventually judge them by the same standard they applied to the politicians they replaced, and that’s not always to their benefit. For many voters, Biden presented himself as a more stable alternative after a tumultuous first Trump term, dominated by the pandemic and its economic consequences.
However, during President Biden's administration, inflation and the rising cost of living remained dominant political concerns, and voter dissatisfaction remained widespread. Questions about Biden's health eventually led Democrats to replace him with Vice President Kamala Harris as their nominee.
Trump once again successfully argued that he represented change rather than the political status quo, which is far easier to do as a challenger than an incumbent. Following his return to office, public satisfaction with the direction of the country briefly reached its second highest level since before the Great Recession.
Yet that improvement in outlook proved short-lived. By summer 2025, large "No Kings" protests were taking place across the country, while Zohran Mamdani's victory in New York City's mayoral race reflected a continued willingness among voters to embrace candidates promising fundamental political change amid ongoing economic policy failures.
In his case, it was NYC voters willing to take a chance on “democratic socialism”, an idea that would perhaps have been unfathomable in the home of America’s capitalist economic system a year earlier.
That same pattern continues in 2026. Voters frustrated by issues in the political and economic system and disappointed by both major parties’ failures to address them are increasingly turning against incumbents.
Some officeholders are losing primaries, while others are choosing to retire rather than face dissatisfied voters. President Trump's approval ratings have fallen to their lowest levels of either of his terms, voters are identifying as “independent” at record levels, Republicans are bracing for the possibility of a difficult midterm election, and Democratic Party voters increasingly want politicians who are more aggressive and confrontational, embracing a style closer to Donald Trump, as more than 80 percent of them say America’s political and economic system needs to be torn down.
This is resulting in combative, competitive Democratic primaries for numerous offices.
Until Americans believe government is delivering meaningful improvements to their lives, the demand for political outsiders is unlikely to disappear on either the left or the right. This doesn't mean more conventional major candidates can no longer win elections. Conventional candidates continue to win elections, though they increasingly face primary challenges rooted in the politics of dissatisfaction.
However, voters will likely continue searching for someone they believe can make the political system work for them again and ease the frustration that has shaped American politics for nearly two decades.
Will they be able to, though? We’ll see what the “Midterms of Rage” brings about.
