113 predictions for Trump's second term

From constitutional crises to Mars and back again.

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Borrowing a feature that’s been popular at other Substacks, I’m here to give you some predictions for what Trump’s second term will bring. A lot of them, in fact: 113. Just how likely are tail risk outcomes like the U.S. undergoing a severe constitutional crisis or Trump remaining in office for a third term? What about more ordinary things like a recession? Will Trump successfully reduce immigration from Mexico — and will he finally build the wall? Will he buy Greenland — or retake the Panama Canal? And who’s gonna win in 2028?

In many cases, you can actually bet on these outcomes at Polymarket (where I’m a part-time advisor), Manifold Markets or Kalshi. But I’m not necessarily expecting to provide alpha here. I certainly don’t have expertise in all these areas. If you do — for instance, if you specialize in analyzing the Supreme Court — you could undoubtedly improve on these estimates.

Rather, my purpose is twofold. First, as an exercise in forecast calibration.¹ All of the predictions here are probabilistic. Historically, the probabilities listed in our election and sports models have been honest: the things we list as having a 70% chance of happening really do happen about 70% of the time, not more and not less. So how well can I do when I don’t have a model to lean on?

Second, I thought this might be a good way to let you know my priors. Even if some of these are in categories I don’t write about very often, they’ll potentially affect my approach to covering the new administration. There’s a certain type of writer who has a tendency to treat tail risks as default outcomes without having any accountability for their predictions. That can make it hard to know what’s worth paying attention to and what’s just noise. At the same time, even if I list certain possibilities as being well under 50%, they might be worth worrying about. A 10% chance of a substantial retreat from democracy in the United States would keep me up at night, for instance.

Here are the categories we’ll cover:

• Baseline political outcomes

• Trump and 2028

• Demographic trends in the electorate

• Elon Musk and Silicon Valley

• Cabinet confirmations and turnover

• Economy, budget, and fiscal policy

• Foreign policy

• Constitutionality and executive overreach

• Immigration

• Domestic policy and culture wars

• Trump and the media

Baseline political outcomes

1. Democrats win the House in the 2026 midterms. Prediction markets put this at 70%, but I suspect there’s too much hedging toward 50/50 given the historical midterm penalty plus the narrowness of the current GOP majority. Plus, the Democratic voting bloc should still turn out in midterms. 85%

2. Democrats take control of the House before the 2026 midterms through special elections or party switches. Not as unlikely as you might think; Democrats would need to flip three seats, and recent Congresses have featured an average of 1.6 special elections that switched parties. 10%

3. Democrats win the Senate in 2026. I’m a little below market here, conversely; Maine and North Carolina are obvious Democratic opportunities, but it’s hard to find a third one. 15%

4. Democrats win the presidency in 2028. In contrast to markets, which see this as a pure 50/50 proposition, I give just the slightest edge to Democrats. In the short run, I tend to see anti-incumbent effects prevailing, and Republicans won’t get to nominate a true incumbent with Trump term-limited, even if there may be a conservative vibe shift in play over the medium term. 55%.

5. Democrats win a trifecta (House + Senate + POTUS) in 2028. They’ll have to flip 3 of 4 obvious Senate pickup opportunities by 2028. Considering how correlated everything is, I think they’re a favorite to do this, conditional on having won the presidency. 40%

6. Mike Johnson remains Speaker of the House through 11/3/2026. Manifold puts a similar question at just 50%, which is well below the base rate — I expect turmoil in the GOP caucus, but it’s not apparent who the replacement would be. 60%

7. At least one new Supreme Court vacancy in the 119th or 120th Congress. Alito and Thomas are old, and with political control rapidly flipping back and forth in recent years, they have every incentive to make a politically timed retirement. 85%

8. A third party is a significant factor (>=15% or more of the popular vote at any point after Labor Day) in the 2028 race. This has classically been a sucker’s bet, but I’m higher than the base rate here as the parties try to navigate the new normal in a time of deep dissatisfaction with the status quo. 20%