Republicans have been down this road before — and they may be marching straight toward the same cliff.
In 2018, the party didn’t just stumble; it got crushed. Forty-one House seats evaporated, a political wipeout with Donald Trump’s fingerprints all over it. His approval ratings hovered in the low 40s, and independents — the voters who usually break the tie in American politics — bolted. They’d had enough. They wanted a check on Trump, and they handed the gavel back to Nancy Pelosi.
Now, eight years later, the warning signs aren’t subtle. They’re blaring.
Midterms usually rough up the president’s party, but 2018 wasn’t just a rough patch — it was a straight-up verdict. And the mood heading into 2026 is starting to feel a lot like déjà vu. Public frustration is so loud that President Trump has been scrambling behind the scenes, pushing Republicans to redraw congressional maps in hopes of wiping out any chance Democrats have at gaining seats. But here’s the twist: those new maps look like they’re about to blow up in his face — and could cost Republicans even more seats than before.
Last week’s special election in Tennessee should have been a layup for the GOP. Instead, it was a scare. Republican Matt Van Epps beat Democrat Aftyn Behn by 9 points — in a district Trump won by 22 just last year.
And Behn wasn’t exactly a stealth moderate. She once called for dissolving the Nashville police department. She said she stood with the 54 percent of Americans who thought torching a police station was justified. She even announced that she hates country music — in Nashville. Yet she still came within single digits.
That’s not a fluke. That’s a fire alarm.
Trump’s political standing is sinking again. The RealClearPolitics average pegs his approval rating at 42.4 percent. Gallup puts him at 36 percent — his lowest point of the second term. His support among Republicans has dipped from 91 percent after the 2024 election to 84 percent. Among independents, the bottom has fallen out: from 42 percent down to 25.
One in four independents. That’s it.
Sure, November 2026 isn’t tomorrow. But voters have started murmuring the same thing they said in 2018: We’re not happy. Unless something changes, Republicans aren’t just at risk of losing their House majority — the Senate could be in play too.
And the trouble isn’t simply Trump’s style, his press conferences, or his late-night posts. The rot runs deeper.
It’s the economy. Still.
James Carville nailed it decades ago: “It’s the economy, stupid.” That line hasn’t aged a day.
Trump insists the economy is humming. Biden said the same when he was in charge. But voters aren’t grading the stock market; they’re grading their own lives. The only number that matters to them is the one on the grocery receipt.
“Affordability” is the word that will decide this election. Everyone feels the strain — at the pump, at checkout, when rent’s due, when interest rates chew through a paycheck.
Yet Trump brushed off affordability worries as a Democratic “con job.” He claimed it “doesn’t mean anything to anybody.”
Tell that to a parent juggling bills, a retiree watching savings shrink, or a young couple trying to buy their first home. Trump promised to bring prices down. Some things cost less than they did a year ago, but most families don’t feel relief. Walk the aisles of any grocery store — the frustration is impossible to miss.
Karl Rove summed it up in the Wall Street Journal: Republicans may have “avoided disaster” in Tennessee, but the result should be a wake-up call. He’s right.
But a wake-up call only matters if someone answers it.
Right now, the party is drifting into 2026 with the same complacency that cost them dearly in 2018. They don’t need to make sweeping mistakes to lose. They just need to keep doing nothing.
