A growing number of American voters are "excited" about the prospect of punishing Republicans in November's midterm elections, a trend that longtime Democratic strategist Max Burns attributes to a widening "Trump hangover effect" in a new op-ed for The Hill published Wednesday morning.

As the first nationwide electoral test since the 2024 presidential election, the midterms will determine the makeup of both chambers of Congress — with control of the House and Senate shaping how much of a president's second-term agenda can advance. Burns writes that the upcoming midterms appear set to continue — and escalate — the "historic electoral wipeout" Republicans suffered in 2025's off-year elections, when Democrats swept every statewide race. Since then, he argues, "Things have only gotten worse for Republicans after a year of inaction in Washington amid skyrocketing gas prices and stubborn inflation."

According to Burns, a rising share of voters are eager to use their ballots against President Trump even when they are not enthusiastic about supporting Democrats. Recent polling, he notes, points to the same pattern.

"In Maine, a CNN poll published last week reveals that nearly half of those surveyed view their vote in this year's Senate race as a chance to oppose Trump's agenda," Burns detailed. "A CBS News-YouGov poll published on Sunday found the same trend nationally, where 45 percent said they were voting specifically to oppose Trump."

He added: "Half of Americans now use the words 'corrupt' and 'extreme' to describe Trump's radicalized Republican Party. Republicans have so badly alienated regular people that voters are actually excited to punish anyone associated with Trump's failed presidency. I call that voter rage the 'Trump hangover effect,' and it is reshaping national races that were once considered reliable Republican strongholds."

That reshaping, Burns argues, is visible in the effort Republicans are now forced to devote to races they might once have taken for granted. In Kansas, incumbent GOP Sen. Roger Marshall led his Democratic opponent by just five points in a recent poll — a survey that oversampled Republican voters by 10 points, in a state Trump carried by 16 points in 2024. As with any individual survey, the poll carries a sampling margin of error, and its partisan oversample reflects pollsters' modeling of the expected electorate — context that shapes how such narrow leads should be weighed as further polling arrives ahead of November.

"If Marshall is really underperforming that badly in Kansas, Democrats could enter the final stretch of the midterms with a broader electoral map than even they predicted," Burns wrote.

He continued: "The Trump hangover effect is also on display in Tennessee, where Democrat Justin Pearson (D) narrowly trails Republican Brent Taylor (R) by 4 points in the state's redrawn 9th Congressional District. Trump won the newly constituted district by 20 points in 2024. Pearson is no doubt helped by the fact that Trump's popularity has cratered to a net minus-3 rating among Tennesseans, with high gas prices and affordability issues driving voters' negative feelings."

High gas prices, per Burns, remain the chief driver of the public's deepening disapproval of Trump and the GOP — a problem he says is compounded by the party's "incoherence" in discussing it.

"Last Sunday, Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) admitted on NBC's 'Meet the Press' that gas prices and inflation were 'gutting people like a fish' and that a dysfunctional Republican Congress had the power — but not the political will — to address inflation before the election," Burns wrote. "Two days later, Fox News host Laura Ingraham made the exact opposite argument. She said that gas prices were actually decreasing. One day after Ingraham's remarks, Trump acknowledged the high price of gas but told voters that high prices were the necessary cost of preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb."

He concluded: "So, what's the message, guys? Faced with a crisis they created and yet can't seem to fix, Republicans are saying everything — and as a result, voters are hearing nothing."