All along, Republicans have faced high odds in their effort to preserve a governing trifecta in Washington in November’s midterm elections. They have a fragile majority in the House — just three seats when all current vacancies are filled. Only twice since World War II has the president’s party made House gains in a midterm, and in both cases (1998 and 2002), the president was popular at a level Donald Trump has never once reached in his long career. His perpetually underwater job-approval rating has been sliding since the fall of 2025, and while his MAGA base remains loyal, the swing voters responsible for his narrow reelection win in 2024 appear to be deserting him at a steady pace. His Iran war is unpopular and is exacerbating perhaps his greatest vulnerability: his broken 2024 promises to lower prices. The congressional GOP is in disarray; its proudest achievement, last year’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, is unpopular too. And most of what Republicans aim to do via party-line steamrolling the rest of this year (e.g., insulating ICE from reforms and massively boosting defense spending) won’t be popular either.

Trump could yet bring his Iran war to a non-disastrous conclusion and draw some lucky breaks on the economy, but all in all, there’s no discernible path to the kind of midterm upset he wants. He’s tried to tilt the U.S. House playing field via an unprecedented mid-decade national gerrymandering push, but Democrats (and some Republicans) have battled him to what is looking like a draw. Meanwhile, Democrats are overperforming in just about every off-year or special election. The most relevant question is no longer “Will the GOP lose?” but “How much will it lose?” A year ago, it was widely assumed that the four-seat Republican advantage (53 seats plus J.D. Vance’s tie-breaking vote) in the Senate was invulnerable in 2026. Now........

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