"If Democrats win one or both chambers of Congress, investigations are likely, but meaningful change may be elusive"
"After 20 months of chaos, many U.S. scientists are hoping the results of the 3 November midterm elections will lead to changes in some of the White House policies they find most objectionable. But policy experts say there’s no guarantee that Democrats, even if they regain control of one or both chambers of Congress, will achieve meaningful boosts in federal support for research or an end to political interference by President Donald Trump’s administration.
“It’s one thing to be a cheerleader for science,” says Joel Widder, a retired lobbyist who earlier spent 20 years as a senior manager at the National Science Foundation (NSF). “But will it be one of the Democrats’ top five priorities? If not, it’s going to be very hard to overturn what Trump has done.”
That record includes canceling billions in federal research grants, redirecting money already appropriated by Congress to fund the president’s priorities, hollowing out staff at science funding agencies including NSF and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), eliminating dozens of outside scientific advisory bodies, and insisting that political appointees exert control over agency grantmaking."
Jocelyn Kaiser and Jeffrey Mervis report for Science October 6, 2026.
