While the focus for US President Donald Trump during the Iran war is naturally on avoiding human casualties, what he also needs to consider is the damaging impact it is having on the Republican Party.Without Republican control of the House and the Senate, many of his programs will be reversed and he will struggle to achieve his goals. It could even end his presidency. It is almost certain that a Democratic-controlled House would impeach the president, although it would take a significant loss in the Senate to take that further.The war with Iran comes at a bad time politically for Trump, who was elected on a platform of putting “America First” and staying out of foreign wars. Despite public animosity toward Iran, most Americans do not want this war and they do not perceive Iran as a direct military threat.Recent polling shows most Americans lack confidence in Trump’s policies. Trump may have been the better choice in the 2024 election in the face of a Democratic Party dominated by the extreme left, but many Democrats, especially conservative-leaning members of the party, are now shifting to the political center.A Gallup poll in November showed Trump’s approval rating had dropped to just 36 percent. But the real issue is how that change will impact the upcoming midterm elections. Can the Republican Party maintain control of the House and Senate and give Trump support for his actions?Polling in the last week shows Trump’s popularity continuing to fall, alongside worsening support for Republicans. The public is focused on the Iran war, but not just on winning. They are concerned about the cost and the impact on the economy and their everyday lives.According to an NBC poll, 54 percent of voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of Iran, compared with 41 percent who approve. A similar share, 52 percent, say the US should not have taken military action, while 41 percent say it should have. And polling across a dozen agencies monitored by CNN shows that the numbers have worsened since the start of the war.Trump’s problem has never been the far left. His power is built on maintaining his base of Republicans and conservative Democrats. But as public concerns about the economy rise, conservative Democrats are shifting. That shift could be politically dramatic.The incumbent US president’s party has lost seats in the House in 20 of the 22 midterm elections held since 1938, marking a 90 percent loss rate over the last 80 years. Only twice (in 1998 and 2002) did the incumbent gain seats in the House. The average loss is 28 seats. Meanwhile, the president’s party loses Senate seats about 70 percent of the time.Trump currently has the support of the Republican Party, which is holding on to razor-thin majorities in both the House and the Senate, enough to give him support so far and to prevent interference in his policies from Democrats. But that will undoubtedly change after November’s midterms.What we have started to see in party elections in the past week — beginning in Texas, a traditionally strong base for the Republican Party and Trump — is a substantial shift in voter attitudes.

In the Democratic Senate primary there, a more centrist candidate easily defeated a far-left liberal, something that could only happen if conservative Democrats were gaining a stronger voice within their party.James Talarico beat Jasmine Crockett after winning more than 52 percent of the votes cast. More importantly, the Democratic race attracted far more voters than the Republican election to nominate a candidate for the US Senate.Among Talarico’s campaign messages were emphasizing common ground with disaffected Republicans and seeking to restore religious values away from the pro-Trump evangelical movement.More than 2.3 million voters came out for the Talarico-Crockett race, while only 1.7 million voted in the Republican contest, in which the state’s incumbent Sen. John Cornyn was forced into a May 26 run-off with challenger Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general.It is not just that Talarico, a conservative Democrat with strong religious values, stands to take the Texas Senate seat. It is that Democrats who have voted Republican in the past are apparently shifting back to a more conservative Democratic Party.Texas was among the first states to hold their primary elections last week. The rest will follow during the spring and summer.What is driving this change? It is not the fighting involved in the war on Iran or the endless wars in Gaza and Ukraine. It is the cost of these wars and the negative impact they are having on the American economy.The price of oil surged 35 percent last week, the largest weekly gain since 1983. That drives up gasoline costs. Higher gas prices hurt Trump because he singled out this issue in his State of the Union speech, bragging that they had fallen during his presidency.Trump insisted that the economy was recovering and told Americans to expect a jobs increase. But a report released last week showed the exact opposite, with 92,000 jobs lost in February after an erratic roller coaster ride since he took office last January.The Iran war is already adding an estimated $1 billion-plus a day to the costs of the Gaza and Ukraine wars. If the Iran war lasts four weeks, as Trump has stated, the cost to US taxpayers will easily exceed $100 billion and the economy will slump even more.But it is not just gasoline or jobs. Everyday items like groceries are rising, while wages continue to slump. Income levels are not keeping pace with inflation.The dollar buys far less today than it did a year ago. This might lead to a seismic shift in American politics that could, at best, push the president and the Democrats into a stalemate of indecision.

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