Maybe the Republican Fever Will Finally Break This Time

In 12 U.S. Senate contests, polls that sampled voters since October 18 show average leads of five points or less. Factor in statistical margins of error and the possibility of momentum shifts too late for polls to capture, and a very wide range of outcomes is possible.  

But to take the polls at face value, the Blue Wave is coming. Not only does Democratic control of the House appear to be a lock, but Democrats are also poised to net at least six Senate seats—giving them a 53-seat majority.  

Such a victory runs through four states that Donald Trump won by double digits two years ago: Alaska, Kansas, Texas, and Ohio. The prospect of Democrats, and maybe some left-leaning independents, flipping Senate seats on other deep red turf like Iowa, South Carolina, and Nebraska is plausible.  

Trump’s strategy to contain a Blue Wave has been to crisscross the country, insert himself in as many Senate races as possible, insist that he is “on the ballot,” and try to juice turnout among his loyalists. As I wrote three weeks ago, several of Trump’s predecessors learned the hard way that presidents aren’t very useful at juicing midterm turnout. And nothing in the last three weeks—from widening Democratic poll leads to worsening inflation numbers to Trump’s fixation on Senator Jon Husted’s ass—suggests he’s going to be an exception.  

And even if Trump somehow managed a late turnout surge and fended off the worst outcomes, that should offer Republicans only a modicum of comfort. For one, Trump will never be on the ballot again. A baseball team can’t rely on one relief pitcher forever, and a political party can’t rely on one president forever. That so many Republican incumbents need rescue missions and compelling Republican fresh races are hard to find are signs that the ultra-self-centered Trump has done little to build a bench. 

Second, Trump is the main reason why so many Republicans need rescuing. His policy choices on tariffs and Iran were childishly impulsive and erratic, as were his stubborn refusals to change course. The resulting impact on consumer prices hit Americans hard and spared no Republican base voters. At the same time, Trump has flaunted his ability to line the pockets of himself and his family members. He has jettisoned core conservative principles regarding limited government when it suits his political or personal purposes. All of this has ruptured the bond he had forged with Republican base voters and contributed to job approval ratings languishing in the upper 30s.  

Trump’s inability to think two steps ahead has also led to boneheaded political mistakes. As Semafor recently reminded readers, Trump opened two Senate seats, now on the verge of flipping, by plucking Ohio’s JD Vance out of the Senate to be his Vice President and making North Carolina’s Thom Tillis miserable enough that he refused to run for re-election. His longstanding feud with Governor Brian Kemp made it impossible to recruit the popular Georgian to run against Senator Jon Ossoff. He endorsed the scandal-tarred Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in the primary against incumbent Senator John Cornyn, and he handpicked the not-ready-for-prime-time Darline Graham to run and keep her late brother’s Senate seat in South Carolina. 

More broadly, Trump insistence on personal loyalty made it difficult for most Republican incumbents to develop personas independent of him—which can come in handy when trying to survive a midterm election against the backdrop of an unpopular president.  

Not too long ago, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart mocked pundits for repeatedly predicting that “cracks” were forming in the MAGA coalition while Congressional Republicans remain supine. Yet the pundits were correct. Cracks have formed. Demanding swing voters are swinging and fed-up base voters—if early voting data means anything—are staying home. Otherwise, Democrats wouldn’t be competitive in so many Trump-won states. Beltway Republicans have just been extremely slow to acknowledge the cracks because Trump operates like a mob boss. But intimidation and bluster can only stave off the laws of political physics for so long. At some point, usually after a midterm, the mob boss reveals himself to be a lame duck. 

The obvious conclusion to draw is that the Republican Party needs to redefine itself for the post-Trump era.  

This is not a situation where the party rank-and-file has reason to stand by an unpopular presidency. Democrats, for example, never completely abandoned Barack Obama despite fluctuations in his popularity (even if they were more critical than they should have been). The 44th president delivered policies in line with the party’s liberal principles that could be expected to wear well with voters over time. Trump, in very stark contrast, broke pledges to lower prices, protect Medicare and Medicaid, avoid stupid wars, and strengthen the military. He laid waste to bedrock conservative principles and instructed his party to simply follow his whims.  

Blind loyalty to Trump paid off for Republicans at the ballot box, but only when he was out of power, mercilessly attacking the Democrats in charge. It never helped when he was in power, stuck defending his own feeble record, not in the 2018 midterms and not in 2020 when he lost his reelection bid. And that means post-Trump Republicans can’t regroup based on disastrous policies or based on long-ditched conservative principles. They will need to start from scratch and reexamine what they believe in beyond Trump. 

The Trump fever infecting the GOP will break because the party can’t sustain otherwise. The party can only hope tonight’s midterm results break it so thoroughly and clearly that they can begin to recover. 

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