7 Wild Midterm Candidates Who Show How Far America Has Fallen - Newsweek

There was a time when American politicians feared the discovery of a mistress or an unpaid tax bill. Back then, a career could perish over a single indiscretion or a resurfaced photo from college.

The political graveyards of days of yore, then, were full of men whose offenses, by the standards of 2026, might barely qualify for an embarrassing Tuesday. Now, with the November midterms approaching, voters face a collection of candidates whose biographies might once have been rejected by the writers of a particularly implausible political satire.

Something has happened to the American sense of the disqualifying. Today, scandal, once a mortal wound, can actually become a credential of defiance and ignorance can be marketed as authenticity.

The bizarre offers its own peculiar form of political capital, especially when notoriety guarantees an audience and an audience can be converted into votes. The result is a political culture in which the boundaries of acceptable conduct are being renegotiated in public, often by the people most eager to cross them.

At the risk of getting too nostalgic for an imagined golden age of American statesmanship, here’s a nice dose of reality: the republic has survived demagogues, charlatans, segregationists and an assorted variety of crooks. Political parties have always tolerated questionable characters when electoral advantage demanded it, and we’ve all survived those.

Still, the 2026 midterms offer a remarkable assortment of political controversies, cutting across party lines and levels of government. We’ve got a Republican who made Nazi jokes; a Democrat who drank before a candidate forum; a congressman pardoned by a president from the opposing party. Each illuminates a different corner of America's changing political culture. Together, they raise a question that might once have been answered long before Election Day. What, exactly, does a candidate have to do to become unelectable?

Brandon Herrera has built an enormous online following with firearms videos and provocations that might once have destroyed a congressional campaign. Known as The AK Guy, the Republican nominee in Texas's 23rd District has faced scrutiny over videos featuring Nazi imagery, including a reenactment of Hitler's suicide, and derogatory remarks about women. Herrera rejects suggestions of Nazi sympathies, describing his material as irreverent entertainment.

Supporters see an outspoken gun-rights advocate who defies political convention while detractors question his judgment. The larger curiosity is that the material once capable of destroying a political career can now create the celebrity that makes one possible.

The traditional candidate forum is a dreary affair, punctuated by promises to repair roads and balance budgets. Can you blame Jaime West for transforming one into a national spectacle?

The Democratic candidate declared she would fire Republicans, described MAGA supporters as racist and unintelligent, and made a remark about Democrats possessing guns.

She subsequently told Piers Morgan she had consumed three beers beforehand because she was nervous. To top it off, she expressed no regret about the substance of her remarks.

West argues that Americans have reason to be furious about the country's direction, yet her performance illustrates the rewards of political excess.

A county council candidate who might ordinarily struggle to attract attention beyond her neighbors became a national personality.

Whether that publicity wins votes or merely turns local democracy into another installment of America's political reality show remains uncertain. But we’re still talking about her, right?

Ken Paxton is the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Texas, having defeated incumbent John Cornyn. His career has included a securities-fraud indictment, resolved without a conviction, and a 2023 impeachment by the Republican-controlled Texas House over allegations of misconduct involving a political donor (the state Senate acquitted him). Each episode might have ended his career. Instead, Paxton advanced toward Washington.

Supporters point to his acquittal and the resolution of his criminal case as reasons to reject the accusations. Yet Paxton's durability captures a change in the meaning of scandal: where disgrace once suggested a politician had lost his party's confidence, surviving accusations can become evidence of loyalty and resilience.

The more frequently a politician is accused of wrongdoing, the more persuasive his claim to persecution may become to devoted supporters.

If a novelist had invented Henry Cuellar's recent political history, an editor might have rejected the plot. The Texas Democrat and his wife were indicted in 2024 on federal bribery, money laundering and conspiracy charges.

Both denied wrongdoing, and in December 2025, President Donald Trump pardoned them. He said that the Biden administration had unfairly targeted Cuellar over immigration policy. Cuellar expressed gratitude, then sought reelection as a Democrat. Trump complained about his refusal to switch parties. Ha.

The whole thing had a theatrical quality: a Democrat accused of corruption, rescued by a Republican president, then criticized by his benefactor for insufficient partisan gratitude. You can’t make this up.

Most politicians offer voters a story about overcoming adversity but Victor Marx offers something closer to the Book of Revelation. The Republican gubernatorial nominee has described encounters with demons, claimed to have performed exorcisms, and recounted a childhood in which he says his stepfather forced him to kill a man. In October, his wife defended him after recordings resurfaced describing violent incidents involving family members.

Colorado voters face an earthly question: how much of a candidate's extraordinary personal mythology must be verifiable before he is entrusted with governmental power?

New Jersey Democrat LaMonica McIver was indicted following a May 2025 confrontation outside a Newark immigration detention facility, where officers were attempting to arrest Mayor Ras Baraka.

Prosecutors allege McIver physically interfered with officers. She denies wrongdoing, maintaining she was exercising congressional oversight. In August 2026, an appeals court allowed two charges to proceed, while ordering further consideration of a third.

McIver remains presumed innocent. But her candidacy nevertheless presents voters with an extraordinary collision between Congress and the executive branch, unfolding simultaneously in a courtroom and at the ballot box.

The traditional response to scandal is denial and a prayer that investigations conclude before Election Day. Max Miller went further, welcoming scrutiny as domestic-abuse allegations threatened his career. His former wife, Emily Moreno, accused the Ohio Republican of physical violence and threatening her with a firearm.

Allegations involving their daughter also emerged. Miller denies wrongdoing and has sued Moreno for defamation. He faces no criminal charges arising from the allegations, and child-welfare investigators did not substantiate child-abuse allegations.

The controversy acquired a dynastic quality when Moreno's father, Republican Senator Bernie Moreno, questioned Miller's fitness for office. The House Ethics Committee opened an investigation, but Miller stayed in the race.

By late October, the dispute had helped make his previously secure seat competitive. Scandal still threatens political careers…but can it still end them?