The New York Times: Ο Κόσμος: Μετατόπιση ισχύος στην Αμερική; – Μια σημαντική εβδομάδα στα Ηνωμένα Έθνη – Ναι στα αεροδρόμια, όχι στους τουρίστες – Ειρωνεία: Νυχτερίδες στο σπίτι του Μπάτμαν – Η δυναμική των ενδιάμεσων εκλογών – Ηγέτες από όλο τον κόσμο συναντώνται στον ΟΗΕ – Νυχτερίδες στο σπίτι του Μπάτμαν – Έξω από τον σιδηροδρομικό σταθμό της Βενετίας, το φετινό καλοκαίρι, αστυνομικοί σταματούσαν ταξιδιώτες για να βεβαιωθούν ότι είχαν καταβάλει το τέλος ημερήσιας επίσκεψης, το οποίο αποσκοπεί στον περιορισμό του υπερτουρισμού – Ο ποιητής που δίνει φωνή στο Μπόλιγουντ – Πολέντα με τυρί και τηγανητά αυγά

September 22, 2026	By Katrin Bennhold

Good morning, world. When President Trump won a second term, he didn’t just win the presidency. The Republican Party he leads also retook the Senate and kept control of the House of Representatives. This control of both the executive and the legislative branches has given him a pretty free hand to do what he wants without meaningful pushback. Like start a trade war. And a real war.

But in six weeks, that could change. That’s when the United States holds midterm elections. All the seats in the House and a third of the seats in the Senate are up for grabs. My colleague Nate Cohn, our polling wizard at The New York Times, has looked at all the data points and says that, on paper at least, the Democrats have a real chance of winning big.

Also:

Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic candidate for the Senate, in Michigan.  Emily Elconin for The New York Times

Midterm momentum

By Nate Cohn

Last week, a new New York Times/Siena poll found that the conditions for a so-called wave in November’s midterm elections might be coming into place. The only question is whether Democrats will be able to ride it.

Overall, Democrats lead Republicans, 51 percent to 43 percent, among likely voters asked which party they will support for Congress in their district.

That’s “blue wave” territory. At least in terms of the national vote, the Democratic margin in the poll — 8.5 points — would almost exactly match the party’s 8.6-point margin in 2018, when the Democrats regained control of the House of Representatives in Trump’s first term. And it would exceed the winning margins for the party out of power in other recent wave elections, like in 1994, 2006 and 2010.

The Times/Siena poll is just one survey, and polls are imprecise and subject to many sources of potential error. But this is also far from the only data point showing a major Democratic advantage.

The results are almost exactly in line with the average of other polls. And it’s not just the polls. The results of recent special elections also point to Democrats going into the midterms with momentum behind them. So, for that matter, does the long history of midterm elections going back to the dawn of party politics; they tend to favor the party out of power.

But whether Democrats can translate these enormous national advantages into control of the Senate and a significant House majority — which would give Democrats more oversight power and, in the case of the Senate, leverage over Trump’s nominations — is a more complicated question.

The George W. Bush example

Winning control of the House, where every seat will be up for election, is easier than winning control of the Senate, where only one-third of seats are up for grabs in any election year. To win the Senate, Democrats will need to win at least two seats where Trump won by at least 11 points in the last election. That’s really tough, even in a wave year.

The 2006 midterms offer a useful comparison.

As my colleague Carl Hulse recently pointed out, there are a lot of similarities between Trump’s predicament today and George W. Bush’s that year. Both presidents were unpopular: Trump’s approval rating is just 38 percent among likely voters; Bush’s was about the same. Bush was in a quagmire in Iraq and dogged by high gas prices. Today, Trump has just a 31 percent approval rating on the war in Iran and a 28 percent rating on the cost of living.

Even so, to flip the Senate in 2006, Democrats needed to win at least a few seats in states where Bush had won by at least eight points in the previous election. In the end, they pulled it off — but only barely, including two extremely narrow victories of less than one point in Montana and Virginia. Without a few fortunate breaks, those races could have gone the other way, along with the Senate. The result would have been less aggressive oversight of the Iraq war, among other differences.

The national environment may have been great for Democrats, but a Senate win was far from inevitable.

Note: 2026 data is based on a Times/Siena poll conducted Sept. 8 to 13, 2026. The New York Times

Too far to the left?

With Trump’s approval ratings so far underwater, Republicans may have only one realistic card to play: try to rally their base and hold on to Republican-leaning independents by casting the Democrats as too far to the left.

Republicans didn’t have a similar opportunity in 2006, when Democrats assiduously nominated moderate candidates in key red states and districts. While Democrats have nominated candidates with broad appeal in most states this year, there are at least a few competitive races — most notably the Senate contest in Michigan — where Democrats have nominated candidates far to the left of anything the party would have contemplated 20 years ago. They’ve also nominated left-wing candidates in a number of noncompetitive races, which has driven considerable national media coverage of the party’s lurch to the left.

The poll does contain hints that primary victories this summer by progressive and democratic socialist candidates have made the Democratic Party less palatable to some voters. About half of voters — 50 percent of likely voters — say the party is “too far” to the left. That’s up from 46 percent in the last Times/Siena poll of registered voters in May, which was conducted before the democratic socialist surge in New York, Colorado and beyond.

But it’s also hard to see any sign it’s damaging Democrats in the survey results — and in particular, in any question that pits Democrats against Republicans. Voters say, for instance, that Republicans are more extreme than Democrats by an eight-point margin, 48-40.

And at a time when Republicans hold the White House and Congress, voters will tend to be much more concerned about Republican excesses than Democratic ones. That’s part of what makes midterm elections so hard for the party in power.

Related: Trump has launched a broad effort to assert more control over state-run elections and sow doubt about the outcomes. Here’s how.

President Trump will address the U.N. General Assembly today.  Angelina Katsanis for The New York Times

World leaders meet at the U.N.

The annual high-level gathering of the U.N. General Assembly begins today in New York with the Middle East in turmoil, war raging between Russia and Ukraine, energy prices rising and scientists warning that A.I. could imperil humanity.

“It would be hard to imagine a scenario as threatening as the one we’re facing right now,” the U.N. secretary general, António Guterres, said. Trump is set to address the General Assembly and face a world rattled by his trade tariffs, his disdain for allies and the instability resulting from his war against Iran.

Click to watch.  The New York Times

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Clara Margais/picture alliance, via Getty Images

Outside the Venice train station this summer, officers stopped travelers to make sure they had paid a day-tripper fee intended to curb overtourism. Yet just a few kilometers away, construction was underway on an expansion at Marco Polo Airport, which will eventually serve 20 million passengers a year, up from 11.6 million.

Across Europe, airports are expanding to meet growing travel demand, even as the cities they serve are working to stem a rise in visitors with tourist taxes and short-term rental bans. Read why.

Atul Loke for The New York Times

The poet who makes Bollywood sing

Over six decades in Mumbai, the poet known as Gulzar has had an outsize role in shaping the idea of tender romance in India.

He has put his imagination to children’s books and short stories, and he has provided lyrics to more than 150 Bollywood musicals. Now 92, he has maintained a wonder at the beauty in the mundane. Our South Asia bureau chief visited him at his home.

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