Trump will 'need to accomplish mission' he failed in first term to survive 2026: analysis

Donald Trump must make good on a mission he failed to complete during his first term as president, a political analyst has suggested.

The president heads into 2026 having been branded a "lame duck" by several political commentators. To counter this and the dwindling administration, Trump must "accomplish a mission at which he failed in his first term" according to CNN's Stephen Collinson. Whether Trump can "plug the leaks of power" remains to be seen, but Collinson suggested it must be the priority of the president to do so.

He wrote, "Trump might be unmatched as an outside crusader against the 'deep state.' But he now represents an increasingly ragged status quo."

"This year, he’ll need to accomplish a mission at which he failed in his first term — rebuilding his political capital in office. The next year may decide whether a president who has defied every other norm in his office can plug the leaks of power that turn second-term presidents into lame ducks."

One key topic will decide Trump's 2026, the economy. Collinson wrote, "Trump’s political fate will be tied to the economy in 2026. Any spikes in inflation or accelerating job losses could deal the GOP an impossible hand in the midterms."

"The president’s growing obsession, meanwhile, with vanity projects like his new White House ballroom and a growing habit of slapping his name on everything upon which his eye alights is reinforcing caricatures of an unstable sun king in a gilded palace. So did an unhinged end-of-year prime time address in which he ranted at voters who don’t recognize his “A +++++” economic golden age."

Collinson has since suggested it may be late into 2026 that the president's administration sees any sign of economic change, though that Trump had survived similar pressure in the past.

The analyst wrote, "Trump, one of the most significant political figures of the modern age, has repeatedly defied predictions of his eclipse. It’s hard to imagine who else could have pulled off the world’s greatest political comeback in 2024, beset by legal baggage that threatened to send him to jail."

"The president will hope that a late-year surge in GDP growth and an easing of inflation is a harbinger rather than the statistical noise that some analysts attributed to the government shutdown."