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President's Party Up Against Poor Odds In The Midterms
The Republican Party is controlling the House, the Senate and the presidency at the moment, but the midterm elections coming up at in November have the power to change this Status Quo.
Congressional and presidential approval are near all-time lows as the Trump administration's wars are proving unpopular, but the party is also up against a historical precedent at the same time: The president's party rarely does well in the midterms.
As Statista's Katharina Buchholz reports, using data by The American Presidency Project, there are only two presidents of the modern age who could expand their party's showing in both chambers in the midterms or at least not lose ground: Bill Clinton during his second term and George W. Bush during his first, when he managed to flip the Senate in his favor while holding on to the House just one year after 9/11. Against these few success stories stands a long line of defeats.
You will find more infographics at Statista
President Donald Trump himself is no stranger to this. During his first term from 2017 to 2020, the Republican Party lost 41 House seats in the midterms, among the top 5 highest midterms losses since the 1960s. This lost the party control of the chamber, while it gained two seats in the Senate, holding on to it. Trump's predecessor and successor, Joe Biden, fared similar in 2022. The Democrats lost only 9 House seats then, but with the same outcome (they also kept the Senate).
Similarly, back in 2010, Barack Obama lost control of the House just two years into his eight-year term and suffered another major setback in his second midterms when he lost the Senate as well. Bill Clinton in 1994 lost control of both chambers of Congress by the middle of his first term and never won them back in the six years that followed despite the gains he made in his second midterm election. After George W. Bush's successful first midterms, debacle followed four years later as he lost both chambers in 2006 amid fall-out from Hurricane Katrina and the war in Iraq.
While the proof of midterm losses for sitting presidents is resounding, the reasons behind them are more muddled.
Nobody really knows why the midterms are so hard for incumbents irrespective of the political climate. Depending on how a president is perceived by his voters, he could be hit by either apathy or disappointment.
Other than 9/11, which helped George W. Bush succeed, other national crises have not proven a good predictor for midterms success, which leave two more possible culprits: presidential approval and the state of the economy. Both will likely not work in Trump's favor come November.
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Ukraine's Drone Warfare Devouring 4% Of Global Germanium Demand As China Chokes Supplies
Our coverage of rare earths dates back to President Trump's first trade war, when we warned that "Rare Earths Are China's Most Potent Weapon In A Trade War."
What followed was predictable. During the 2025 trade war, Beijing steadily tightened its control over exports of gallium, germanium, antimony, tungsten and a growing list of other critical industrial metals to the West and its allies. These restrictions represent another weapon in Beijing's economic-warfare toolkit, aimed squarely at the most vulnerable chokepoints in Western defense, semiconductor and advanced-manufacturing supply chains.
The latest signals suggest that bilateral tensions are once again deteriorating. China was the sole G20 holdout on language addressing trade imbalances and an unsustainable export-oriented economic model, while Treasury has widened its Iran sanctions campaign to include Chinese entities, refiners and shipping networks.
The response from the Trump administration and other Western governments has been to accelerate efforts to restart dormant mines, expand processing capacity and build critical minerals supply chains outside Beijing's control.
Our coverage of this trade began with an April 2024 note titled "Next Big Mineral Trade Revealed By Morgan Stanley," which identified MP Materials as one of the miners best positioned to benefit from the Trump-era push to restore domestic critical material supply chains.
By early July 2025, we again highlighted MP Materials as one of the clearest stocks for positioning around this decoupling theme. Just weeks later, shares of the rare earth miner surged from around $30 toward triple-digit territory.
Wall Street may not fully recognize the decoupling theme until regulatory restrictions translate into physical shortages. Some analysts are beginning to understand the grim outlook facing the West. But Beijing does not need to announce a formal trade embargo to shock markets into a crisis. Slowing export approvals, restricting volumes, or denying shipments to select end users have already made it clear that the West must rebuild critical supply chains outside China, either domestically or through friend-shoring.
Another indication that Western critical material supply chains could become a major decoupling theme for Wall Street is the emerging global rearmament cycle.
BMO analyst George Heppel noted that the Russia-Ukraine war is expected to account for more than 4% of global germanium demand this year, with an estimated 15 million drones set to be deployed in an environment where China has weaponized critical materials supply chains, given its control of much of the space.
"With a staggering 15 million drones estimated to be deployed in the Russia-Ukraine war this year, it is safe to say that the world has entered the era of mass drone warfare," Heppel said.
Heppel explained: "Our analysis suggests that gallium, germanium and NdFeB magnets are the most important enablers of drone warfare, with gallium and germanium (alongside heavy rare earths) also being vital components required for counterdrone systems."
"Consequently, we expect gallium, germanium and rare earth supply security to continue to be a major priority in the West in the face of this growing threat," he added.
Heppel said the massive deployment of drones has opened a new front in the global scramble for germanium, gallium and rare earth magnets. These critical materials are used throughout the drone and counter-drone parts ecosystem, including in systems designed to detect, track, jam and destroy one-way attack drones.
The numbers surrounding drone-driven demand for critical materials are staggering:
- Drones now account for more than 80% of enemy targets destroyed by Ukrainian forces.
- Governments and military alliances have pledged roughly $150 billion for drone and counter-drone capabilities since 2025.
- About one-third of that planned spending is directed toward counter-drone systems.
- Drone warfare could consume 4.3% of global germanium demand this year.
Heppel said this is only the beginning of a "high-volume, high-precision" era of warfare that combines industrial-scale drone production with precision-strike capabilities. The transition in warfare technology is making militaries increasingly dependent on these obscure metals, much of whose production and processing is controlled by China. That represents a major vulnerability for the West.
Heppel estimates that the average FPV drone contains 46 grams of neodymium-iron-boron magnet material, 0.1 gram of gallium and 1 gram of germanium. Across 15 million drones, this translates into annual battlefield demand of roughly:
- 690 metric tons of NdFeB magnets
- 1.5 tons of gallium
- 15 tons of germanium
Global germanium demand was estimated at just 343 tons in 2025, meaning the Russia-Ukraine battlefield could consume more than 4% of worldwide supply this year. That source of demand did not exist before the war.
The Squeeze On Prices...
Germanium is used in thermal-imaging lenses and in the fiber-optic cables attached to tethered one-way attack drones.
China's grip on germanium supply is becoming increasingly alarming (read here) as the US and allied governments commit an estimated $150 billion to drone and counter-drone capabilities.
Heppel told clients that several publicly traded companies offer exposure to the critical minerals theme:
- MP Materials (MP-NYSE; $54.75; Outperform rated by Max Yerrill and Raj Ray) stands out for its NdPr magnet materials business, production of strategic rare earths such as samarium and gadolinium, and efforts to support drone manufacturing through Project Swarm.
- Neo Performance Materials (NEO-TSX; $31.38; Outperform rated) provides downstream exposure through rare earth separation, magnet production and refined gallium products.
- Energy Fuels (UUUU-NYSE; $14.75; Outperform rated) offers leverage to the redevelopment of a domestic US rare earth supply chain.
- For gallium, Rio Tinto (RIO-LSE; £76.74; Outperform rated) and Alcoa (AA-NYSE; $49.95; Market Perform rated) are emerging as prospective Western suppliers, although gallium is unlikely to become a major revenue driver for either company.
- For germanium, Teck Resources (TECK.B-TSX; $94.51; Restricted) remains a key non-Chinese producer and is evaluating a capacity expansion. Ivanhoe Mines (IVN-TSX; $12.11; Outperform rated) provides indirect exposure through the germanium- and gallium-bearing Kipushi deposit and its potential role in future US critical-mineral supply chains.
"As a result, we expect drone and counterdrone technologies to become another important driver of government efforts to secure domestic production, strengthen processing capacity, and reduce dependence on vulnerable foreign supply chains," Heppel explained.
We have already highlighted Piper Sandler's coverage of LightPath Technologies, whose germanium-free infrared materials offer a synthetic alternative for the West as Chinese export restrictions tighten the global germanium market.
Beyond the critical materials covered by Heppel, Jefferies analysts initiated coverage on several critical minerals companies earlier Wednesday, including Almonty Industries. Jefferies assigned Almonty a "Buy" rating, highlighting the miner's direct public-market exposure to Western tungsten supply.
Jefferies initiates critical mineral companies Almonty, Materion, USA Rare Earth and Neo Performance with Buy; the firms are expected to benefit from increased demand for supply outside of China.
Almonty (buy, PT $26.25)
Sees Almonty offering public exposure to Western tungsten…
Lindsay Clancy Jury Deadlocked Again; Insane Karen Arrested For 'Aggravated Intimidation' Of Jurors
The jury in the Lindsay Clancy murder trial is once again deadlocked over whether the former mother of three should be given a pass due to hysteria and hormones.
The indecision followed five days of deliberations and two notes from jurors saying they could not agree. On Wednesday, Judge William Sullivan gave the panel a Tuey-Rodriguez instruction, Massachusetts' last-resort charge telling a deadlocked jury to reach a verdict or else it's an automatic mistrial.
Clancy, 36, a former labor-and-delivery nurse, was charged with three counts of first-degree murder in the January 24, 2023, deaths of her children - Cora, 5; Dawson, 3; and Callan, 8 months - at the family's home in Duxbury. She has not disputed that she killed them. The question for the jury of nine women and three men was whether she was criminally responsible.
The killingsEvidence at trial showed Clancy spent part of that morning on ordinary errands of motherhood, including a pediatrician visit for Cora and playing in the snow. She then asked her husband, Patrick Clancy, to leave for takeout and a pharmacy run. While he was gone, she strangled the three children with exercise bands in the basement. She cut her wrists and neck and jumped from a second-story window. The fall left her paralyzed from the waist down; she has appeared in court in a wheelchair.
Patrick found her injured in the yard, then found the children. Cora and Dawson were pronounced dead that day. Callan died days later. All three deaths were ruled ligature strangulation. Clancy later said a voice told her it was her last chance: kill the children so she could kill herself.
What the jury was asked to decideProsecutors conceded she was mentally ill, but is still responsible for the killings. Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Sprague told jurors Clancy planned the killings, sent her husband out of the house, and checked how long the errands would take. They pointed to her functioning that day as proof she could form intent. Sprague called the killings "a choice." First-degree murder in Massachusetts can rest on deliberate premeditation, extreme atrocity or cruelty, or both. That conviction is life without parole.
Defense attorney Kevin Reddington argued she lacked criminal responsibility because of postpartum psychosis and bipolar illness, worsened by psychiatric medications and missed warning signs. Under Massachusetts law, the Commonwealth has to prove criminal responsibility beyond a reasonable doubt. Clancy had been hospitalized and discharged about three weeks before the killings.
Jurors heard more than 80 witnesses and saw more than 300 exhibits. For each child's death they could choose first-degree murder, second-degree murder, manslaughter, not guilty, or not guilty by reason of lack of criminal responsibility. Second-degree murder is life with the possibility of parole. A lack-of-responsibility finding typically means commitment to a state psychiatric hospital with periodic reviews and no fixed release date. As noted above, a hung jury would be a mistrial.
Lindsay Clancy’s attorney says Clancy would not be able to “emotionally handle” another trial.
— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) September 2, 2026 Arrest outside the courthouseThe deliberations themselves became part of the story. On Tuesday afternoon, as the jury left after reporting it could not agree, Massachusetts State Police arrested Dawn Light, 56, of Sutton, outside the Plymouth courthouse. She was charged with aggravated intimidation of a witness, juror, or person furnishing information in a criminal proceeding, and was arraigned Wednesday in Plymouth District Court, where she pleaded not guilty and was released on personal recognizance. Her attorney, Jennifer White, called the episode a complete misunderstanding and said Light had only wanted to see Clancy. The judge ordered Light to stay away from the courthouse, have no contact with jurors or witnesses, and release no photographs connected to the case.
Dawn Light, the retired nurse who is facing 20 years in prison for allegedly intimidating Clancy jurors, giggles when asked how she feels now that she's a celebrity.
Reporter: How do you feel that you're a celebrity now?
Light: *Giggles*
Zero remorse.pic.twitter.com/vdnvrQvO0R
Prosecutors said troopers were told someone may have been filming jurors in the courthouse parking lot. They found Light in a car parked in a restricted area and asked whether she was photographing anyone. "She was adamant she was not," Assistant District Attorney Nicole Piacentini said, according to NBC Boston. "She stated she was waiting to see if Lindsay Clancy would come out of the building." An initial search of Light's phone turned up nothing, investigators said, but the deleted folder held images of people later confirmed to be jurors, taken from her vantage point in the car.
Light told CT Insider she had been trying to record Clancy and lowered her phone when she realized the person on camera was not the defendant. She said a court employee asked for her license and phone; she handed over the license and refused the phone, and troopers were called. "That's the long and the short of it," she said. "I don't know how I intimidated anyone."
BREAKING: The woman accused of filming jurors in the Lindsay Clancy trial is in serious legal trouble.
Prosecutors say 56-year-old Dawn Light filmed jurors outside the courthouse and entered a restricted area despite a court order prohibiting jurors from being photographed or… pic.twitter.com/Pz0yx2sQ22
Light is a retired nurse with no prior criminal history. Before deliberations resumed Wednesday, Sullivan questioned each juror individually at sidebar about whether they had seen or heard anything that would affect their ability to decide the case fairly.
Tyler Durden Thu, 09/03/2026 - 05:44