SALENA ZITO: The House Is Restless Again. It Has Been Before.
The voters have been telling the parties this directly. Among independents who lean Republican, according to Pew Research 55% say a major reason is that Democratic policies are harmful, while only 30% credit Republican policies. Among those who lean Democratic, 51% point to the harm done by Republicans, and only 34% to anything Democrats have done.
Those are the voters who decide who controls the House, and they lean away from one party more than toward the other.
Yet each new majority behaves as though it has been embraced. It grows the government it promised to restrain, spends money it promised to save, or pushes the agenda its base wants over the one swing voters were promised, confident the country is behind it. It isn’t. Those voters were never committed, and they take the keys back as quickly as they handed them over. That is why the next wave tends to come so soon.
That brings us back to what our restlessness says about us. Gilded Age voters were living through a transformation they didn’t fully understand, and they kept firing whoever was in charge because no one had yet shown them that the new economy had a place for them. We are living through another transformation. The future is again being built in Western Pennsylvania, on old mill sites and above old gas fields. Many voters still aren’t sure it’s being built for them.
In three weeks the House will tell us what we think, as it always has. Whoever wins should remember that the voters handed them the keys. They didn’t hand them their hearts.
As America’s Newspaper of Record reminds voters, choose wisely next month:
Man Frustrated By Gas Prices Votes To Start Castrating Kids Again https://t.co/0ZirmXHPXF
— The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) October 17, 2026