After a two-year hiatus, Senate GOP primaries are on the way back.

Senate Republicans are bracing for a midterm cycle that could be littered with nasty primary challenges to both incumbents and preferred candidates alike, marking a stark change after party leaders worked hand in glove with President Trump to root them out to help boost their efforts in 2024.

Those efforts paid off handsomely last cycle, with Senate Republicans being able to sidestep a number of potential primary landmines en route to a 53-seat majority that is already paying dividends in Trump’s first 100 days.

But 2026 is shaping up to be very different with Republicans staring down upward of a half-dozen potential primary battles as they look to keep hold of their majority, potentially making this cycle even more perilous than it was already shaping up to be.

“There’s a real opportunity to get to 54, 55 seats [this cycle],” one GOP operative who has worked on Senate races told The Hill. “Putting any red seat in play after a divisive primary where you potentially get a weak challenger that allows Democrats to give some degree of hope is incredibly ill-advised.”

After a rough 2022 midterm cycle, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) altered the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s (NRSC) tactics so the party would take a more heavy-handed approach. That included identifying preferred candidates — particularly those who could self-fund — who could win both a primary and a general election. That stamped out meddlesome primaries by getting Trump on the same page and supporting those candidates, and by saving money that could be used in November instead of in costly intraparty battles.

This resulted in a single competitive primary in Ohio, a competitive state.

While the committee is hoping to build off that success, primaries have already started to emerge, with a number of incumbent senators serving as prime examples — a group the NRSC has

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