Let’s be honest; midterm elections usually just turn into cheap personality contests with most people. But they shouldn’t be. They’re supposed to serve a more important and more basic purpose: an audit.
A good old fashioned job performance review.
Before I get to it, I need to be crystal clear on something.
This isn’t a partisan hit piece and it isn’t a victory lap for the GOP.
I’m an Independent taking an straight-up look at the folks currently running the show for us. If the Democrats held the White House and both houses of Congress, I’d be holding their feet to the exact same fire.
If you remember back in 2024, Republicans didn’t simply ask us to reject Democrats. They promoted a platform with 20 specific promises. And they told us that if we put Donald Trump back in the White House and give them full control of Congress, they’d deliver on every single one.
The voters responded by giving them just what they asked for.
And now that we’ve essentially hit the halfway point, I thought it was time to pop the hood, dig into everything and see how they’ve done.
For me, this isn’t whether you love or hate Trump; he’s just one guy. And it isn’t about rooting for Team Red or Team Blue either. And – it’s not even about whether you agree with the policies they pushed.
To me, the question is so much easier:
Did they actually do what they said they would do?
What do the receipts say?
Where did the administration and Congress succeed or fall flat?
Where did they miss the mark entirely and where did they actually deliver.
As you read each section, you notice a pattern. I’m keeping it simple with these four basic steps:
The Promise: sets the bar.
The Actions: show what actually to passed or signed.
The Record: brings the measurable numbers.
The Review: weighs everything the GOP said they would do against what they actually did along with my own take on the evidence.
As always, no slogans, no team jerseys and no moving the goalposts. And most importantly: facts and evidence over emotion.
Just the promises, the record and the receipts.
Here we go.
Table of Contents
1. Border Security & Immigration
The Promise
Republicans put border security right at the very top of their 2024 platform with two main headlines:
“SEAL THE BORDER, AND STOP THE MIGRANT INVASION.”
“CARRY OUT THE LARGEST DEPORTATION OPERATION IN AMERICAN HISTORY.”
They didn’t mince words either about how they’d do it. They would finish the wall, kill “catch-and-release,” bring back “Remain in Mexico,” supercharge Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and launch an unprecedented deportation push.
So that gives us two straight-forward questions:
Did Republicans actually slash illegal crossings at the southern border?
Did they carry out the mass-deportation program they promised?
While those sound like the same question, their answers tell two very different stories.
The Actions
The administration didn’t mess around. On Day 1 (January 20th, 2025), President Trump declared a national emergency, deployed military support to the border, restarted wall construction, and officially brought back “Remain in Mexico.” That same day, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) also shut down the CBP One app appointment-scheduling feature.
And Congress backed them up quickly. By late January, they’d already passed the Laken Riley Act to mandate detention for illegals charged with theft-related offenses. Then came the big hammer: Public Law 119-21 (aka the Big Beautiful Bill or BBB), which poured $46.55 billion into border walls and infrastructure and pumped tens of billions more into extra staffing and massive ICE detention capability expansion.
On paper, the GOP threw everything including the kitchen sink at the border. Whatever you might think of the actual policies, there’s no debate about how fast they moved to turn promises into action.
But action is only half of the test.
What did those policies actually produce?
The Record
The Border
Illegal crossings dropped by numbers we haven’t seen in about 50 years.
In FY2024, Border Patrol logged over 1.5 million illegal crossings along the southwest border.
In FY2025, that figure cratered to 237,565 – an 84% drop in a single year, making it the lowest annual total since 1970.
And those low numbers are holding up to the release of this publication with monthly apprehensions staying at decades-low levels.
But there’s a catch; the drop didn’t start on Inauguration Day. Border crossings were already coming down during the final months of the Biden administration after its mid-2024 policy shifts.
What changed after Trump took office was the floor dropping out completely. Crossings fell dramatically further and stayed down. The fair take? Republicans shouldn’t get all the credit for starting the downward trend, but they deserve real credit for slamming the brakes on crossings and holding the line at record lows.
Deportations and Enforcement
The deportation side of the promise gets much more complicated.
ICE reported roughly 271,000 removals in FY2024.
In FY2025, total returns and removals climbed to more than 440,000, with roughly 167,000 involving people with criminal convictions or pending criminal charges.
Interior immigration arrests also increased sharply during 2026.
These numbers show a massive surge in enforcement. But there’s a big gap between stepping up deportations and actually pulling off the “largest deportation operation in American history.”
The administration set its own internal target of 1 million returns and removals a year. The FY2025 total fell way short of that benchmark, and final FY2026 data isn’t out yet.
So while the mass-deportation engine is definitely running louder, the evidence isn’t there to declare a historical record broken just yet.
The Review
Where they delivered
When it comes to the border wall and border crossings, Republicans have a rock-solid case. Sure, crossings were already starting to dip before Trump took office, so giving the GOP 100% of the credit isn’t honest. But after January 2025, the decline steepened dramatically. Southwest apprehensions hit a 50-year low and stayed there.
That’s a big, measurable win tied directly to a core promise. GOP supporters can fairly argue that tough policies, expanded detention, and ending catch-and-release created a massive deterrent effect.
Where they fell short (or where critics have a point)
Securing the border and executing mass deportations aren’t the same thing. ICE activity bumped up significantly, but the administration hasn’t proven it’s achieved the largest deportation operation in history – especially against it’s own 1-million-a-year goal.
Critics can also fairly point out that the administration rode a wave already moving in the right direction and that some of their aggressive tactics – like expanding detention and sweeping executive interpretations – have sparked big constitutional headaches in federal courts.
My Take
These two promises need different grades:
On border security, it’s one of the clearest GOP wins in this entire report. The crossing numbers didn’t just drop, they cratered.
On mass deportation, it’s a work in progress. Enforcement has clearly scaled up, but the receipts don’t back up the claim that history’s been made.
Publius Project Bottom line
Slashing illegal border crossings? Promise largely kept.
Pulling off the largest deportation operation in history? Serious progress, but not yet delivered.
That’s one promise down. Fourteen to go.
The full Midterm Report Card examines inflation and affordability, energy, taxes, the national debt, tariffs and manufacturing, war and military strength, civil liberties, Social Security and Medicare, education, crime, elections and more - using the same standard throughout: the promise, the actions, the record and the receipts.