2026: Trump's bad year?

My independent read is that the bear case is real enough to deserve non-trivial odds because the reporting shows a sustained pattern of judicial losses, injunctions, and resistance to core Trump priorities. This is not just isolated turbulence; it spans immigration, voting rules, tariffs, and even White House construction, which together can produce the kind of cumulative year-end narrative that markets often underestimate.

At the same time, the bar for a true “Trump bad year” is not trivial. Trump can absorb many setbacks without the year being broadly perceived as a failure if he retains enough control over the agenda, wins some higher-court reversals, or simply dominates the political conversation enough to turn losses into partisan grievance rather than strategic weakness. That makes this more likely than a coin-flip of ordinary litigation risk, but still far from certain.

Compared with the current 4.3% Yes price, I think the market is likely underpricing the chance that the ongoing stream of court and policy defeats becomes the defining story of 2026. The only reason I am not much higher is that the resolution standard may be stricter than the news summary implies; if the contract needs a dramatic, unmistakable collapse rather than a clustered run of setbacks, then the low market price becomes more defensible.