Friday, October 23, 2026
Column 729
The 2026 Midterms… and DARTS!
With the midterms bearing down on us like a bar tab at closing time, the pundits are consumed with one question: what happens to America if Republicans hold onto the House and Senate? Or… if the Democrats take control?
Healthcare. Taxes. Immigration. War. And whether you need a home-equity loan to buy groceries and enough gasoline to get them home. Fine. Important stuff.
But nobody in Washington has asked the question that keeps me up at night, staring at the ceiling and mentally practicing out shots: What becomes of darts?
Since no think tank will touch it, I’ve done the thinking myself, fortified by two pints and a bag of Screaming Yellow Zonkers (which I am financing over 36 months).
Here is my forecast. (BEWARE: nonsense to follow.)
If the Republicans maintain control…
Tariffs on tungsten. Trade policy will continue to head where it’s been heading, so your next set of tungsten barrels will eventually cost more than your first car. American players will get forced back to brass, and the market will flood with patriotic domestic alternatives: darts forged from pickup truck hubcaps (and flights made from bald eagle feathers).
The upside? Brass darts are fat. You can legitimately blame your 26s on the equipment.
Canada – the real national security threat. At this summer’s US Darts Masters at Madison Square Garden, the only North American to make it as far as the quarterfinals was Jim Long. Long is Canadian. Matt Campbell, who’s been hoarding North American Championship trophies, is also Canadian. Our top American qualifier, Adam Sevada, went out in the first round, and Alex Spellman didn’t fare better.
The president has been vocal about annexing Canada and making it the 51st state. Little else is needed. Long, Campbell and others will be Americans. Problem solved. Our talent pool will improve overnight. Until annexation is complete, any Canadian who beats an American will face a 100 percent victory tariff and must give their winnings to the American.
Why bother developing American players when we might acquire Canadian ones with the stroke of a pen? Of course, the Canadians might object. But we’ve already demonstrated that changing a label is considerably easier than obtaining agreement to its implications.
The filibuster comes to the oche. Any player unable to hit a finishing double may retain possession of the board by continuing to talk. He may discuss tungsten prices, his shoulder, the lighting, the temperature, his marriage or the uneven placement of the wires.
Cloture will require sixty votes. But seeing how impossible it is to get six darts players to agree on where to go for pizza, this will present no problem. In the unlikely event that it does, Stephen Miller will “enforce” the rule by calling anyone who complains a “stupid white hippie” or “crazy communist.”
The oche goes full freedom. It’s really no secret that darts is already the most American sport on Earth. Seven feet, nine and a quarter inches. Not meters. Feet and inches. Period. Full stop. Darts in America has been quietly resisting the metric system for ages, and Congress will notice and act. Expect a resolution recognizing darts as “a sport of imperial measurement and exceptional liberty.” Triples will be renamed and henceforth called “TTs” – for Trump Triples (and also Natalie Harp and Katie Zacharia).
Redistricting the board. Gerrymandering has long been a spectator sport in this country. It was only a matter of time before somebody noticed the dartboard is essentially a map with 20 “districts” with a lot of wasted “votes” landing in 1s and 5s. Look for a bold redraw in which the 20 bed swells to the width of a Papa John’s slice in poor darts states, while the 3 is merged with the 17 and 2 into a “district” shaped like a salamander.
Strong players will challenge these changes. The Supreme Court will take the case after the season ends. They will rule however Trump tells them to.
Congressional hearings. A House subcommittee will investigate why Americans keep getting clobbered by the Brits, Dutch and Welsh. The evidence is damning. In June (as already noted), Luke Humphries beat Luke Littler 8-7 in the final in the heart of Manhattan, becoming the first man to defend the US Darts Masters title. Two Englishmen named Luke, playing for the title on our soil, during our World Cup summer, and not a single American in sight outside of the audience.
Witnesses will be called. David Fatum and Gary Mawson will be asked whether they are “now or have ever been” a member of a foreign darts organization. The hearing will conclude the problem is the metric system, even though (see above) America doesn’t use it.
Mike Johnson will then promise a clean, straightforward bill supporting American darts. It will emerge three weeks later and contain provisions about border security, offshore drilling, school libraries and a tax exemption for any company operating in his congressional district – but darts will have disappeared from the text (Johnson will say the votes just weren’t there).
The shutdown silver lining. When the government shuts down, national parks close, museums close, and federal workers go home. But dart bars never close. A prolonged shutdown could be the greatest recruitment drive in American darts history: thousands of idle citizens wandering into taverns looking for purpose and finding it hanging on the wall. The CDC couldn’t buy that kind of publicity. That is the Championship Darts Corporation – the other CDC has its own problems. Just ask Robert Kennedy, Jr. (unless you have dead animals in your freezer, a worm in your brain, or measles).
So, now is the time to prepare…
Protect your bar. The East Wing of the White House has been demolished to make way for a ballroom. This is unsettling news for anyone whose neighborhood bar has a perfectly serviceable darts area that somebody important might consider insufficiently magnificent.
One minute you’re practicing doubles. The next, a man in a hard hat is explaining that your board stands in the way of a tremendous opportunity. The replacement will feature marble floors, gaudy gold trim and a chandelier directly above the oche. There will be no room for darts, but patrons will be able to sip cocktails where darts used to be enjoyed.
The arch. Washington already has a proposed triumphal arch. Naturally, all American darts establishments will be required to construct one too. Players will enter through a towering gold monument commemorating the greatest ever achievement in American darts: Larry Butler’s win as a 200/1 outsider over Dennis Priestley in the 1994 World Matchplay. Construction will begin before anyone establishes who owns the parking lots. The finished arches will block beer trucks from making deliveries.
Everything gets renamed. The Gulf of Mexico has become the Gulf of America. For US federal use, Lake Ontario is now Lake America. Reportedly, there is discussion of renaming the State of New Mexico and Atlantic and Pacific oceans. This suggests a simple solution to our longstanding inability to dominate foreign darts players: rename them.
Luke Littler will become Luke Smith. Michael van Gerwen will become Mike Jones. To replace “Maple” in his “Darth Maple” nickname, John Part will have to meet Larry Butler in the Octagon for the rights to “Eagle.”
League night becomes an affordability crisis. We were promised relief at the grocery store. Apparently, somebody forgot to notify the groceries. Food prices have risen, and the Iran war has helped drive up gasoline prices. This creates a practical problem for the traveling darts player: after filling the tank and buying something to eat, there may be nothing left to lose in the tournament.
Players will begin carpooling in groups of twelve. The designated driver will also be the designated lender. Tournament flyers will advertise: “$10 ENTRY. $500 ADDED. BRING YOUR OWN SANDWICH.” The prize for winning your local singles competition will be a tank of regular and six eggs.
JD Vance will suggest competing closer to home. When players complain about tungsten prices, he will suggest brass. When we complain about brass, he will suggest practicing. This last proposal will be condemned throughout American darts as an outrageous intrusion into our way of life.
War comes to the oche. Darts already has enough military terminology to attract Washington’s attention. We have “barrels,” “sudden death” and people who describe a reasonably good leg against a plumber as a “devastating assault.”
Soon, a bounce-out will be classified as a “hostile incident.” A wayward dart into a neighboring board or a chalker’s ear will trigger an “emergency briefing.” Captains will insist it was a “precision operation.” Teams will promise a “swift and decisive victory.” Three hours later, players will still be trying to finish d1.
Pete Hegseth will take command. When reporters ask for clarifications, he will accuse them of “undermining darts warriors.” He will declare a team that lost 6-1 to have achieved an “overwhelming victory.” To the new position of Darts Theater Commander, Hegseth will appoint Leonard Gates, whose military experience consists of owning camouflage shorts (which to be fair is more “experience” than our Commander in Chief has). Hegseth’s demand that darts ban all “fatties, trannies, beardos, weirdos, wimps, and radicals” is dismissed out of hand because it would have completely wiped-out darts as we know it.
Mucho Musk money. Musk has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Republican political efforts.
If the Republicans maintain control, he’ll buy all leagues, give them weird names like his 14 kids (like X AE A-XII, Strider Sekhar and Seldon Lycurgus) and announce that chalkers are inefficient. Half will be dismissed tout de suite. An artificial intelligence scoring system will replace them. It will confidently calculate that 501 minus 26 equals “subscription required.” Boards will become touchscreens which for inexplicable reasons will not crack when pierced by a dart. The touchscreens will require updates which will begin during your throw. Musk will assure us this is the future.
And yes, there will be files. Every league has a folder containing old scoresheets, and more – like a handwritten note explaining why Gary is no longer welcome to compete because he once threw a beer at an opponent.
There will be demands for the release of all dart files. Captains will promise complete transparency. Six months later, thousands of pages will be produced with everything blacked out except “Tuesday” and “cheese platter.”
Kash Patel will investigate and announce at a press conference that all mentions of “Tuesday” will be unredacted. In a subsequent briefing, when asked by a reporter if missing 16 attempts at a double suggests a performance problem, Patel will explain that the previous administration left the doubles. Two months after the election, Patel will resign and move to Canada to booze it up with hockey players.
Now, before my inbox fills with angry emails from the other side of the aisle, in the interest of fairness let me give the other party a paragraph…
If the Democrats flip one or both chambers…
Expect an 800-page bill requiring an environmental assessment before a proposed mandatory transition to sustainably harvested bamboo shafts. A federal task force will be appointed to study whether “double-in” games are inequitable to players who can’t hit doubles, which is most of us. The sole accomplishment of a new agency, creatively named the Division of Darts and which the Democrats will demand that Trump appoint Pete Buttigieg to head, will be the appointment of a 40-person committee to debate replacing the colors on dartboards with those of the rainbow to honor the LGBTQ community.
The Dartoid’s World prediction…
Nothing will happen, absolutely nothing. Congress won’t pass a single bill mentioning darts because they can’t pass bills about anything. The line will stay at seven-nine-and-a-quarter. The board will look exactly the same. Canadians will remain Canadians.
In other words, it doesn’t matter who wins. Were the Republicans or Democrats to actually get involved in darts they’d surely find a way to make darts more expensive, more complicated, and slower. It’s the one truly bipartisan skill they have. Whatever their differences, Washington can usually find common ground inside our wallets.
Darts survived Prohibition. It survived the smoking bans. It survived COVID. It survived soft-tip machines that play music, gulp quarters and talk to you. Darts will survive the 2026 midterms. And darts will survive the 120th Congress, whoever runs it.
Post-election, the only thing “changing hands” on league night will be the same five bucks that’s gone back and forth between Big Eddie and me since 2011.
Stay thirsty, my friends,
Dartoid
