Republicans Look Set To Get Wiped Out in 2025 and 2026
The numbers are already stark. The GOP has trailed averages of the generic congressional ballot—which asks voters whether they would vote for a Democrat or a Republican for the House—since March. By way of comparison, after Joe Biden took office in 2021, Republicans didn't take the lead in Real Clear Politics averages until November of that year. The race for the House of Representatives is starting to look much more like the 2018 cycle, when Republicans trailed from pretty much the day pollsters started asking thanks to the enduring unpopularity of President Trump's policy agenda, and more importantly, his gratuitously provocative and confrontational political style.
President Donald Trump listens as he meets British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for bilateral talks at Trump Turnberry golf club on July 28, 2025, in Turnberry, Scotland.
President Donald Trump listens as he meets British Prime Minister Keir Starmer for bilateral talks at Trump Turnberry golf club on July 28, 2025, in Turnberry, Scotland.The betting site Polymarket gives Democrats a 70 percent chance of retaking the House in 2026, and this grim outlook certainly isn't lost on the GOP, which is scrambling to pull off a mid-decade redistricting in Texas to squeeze a few extra seats out of an already-aggressive gerrymander that gave them 25 out of 38 seats in both 2022 and 2024. As Princeton's Sam Wang noted, this may ultimately backfire on them even if they get it done, by creating a larger number of seats with significant but not unbreachable Republican advantages that could be overcome in a true wave election.
There's actually a nearer-term threat on the horizon. Republican gubernatorial candidates in Virginia and New Jersey are also trailing badly in races that will be decided in just a few months. In 2017, Democrats scored blowouts in both races that previewed the 2018 blue wave. And in 2021, Republican Glenn Youngkin's shock win over Democrat Terry McAuliffe in Virginia, and Democrat Phil Murphy's surprisingly narrow 3-point reelection over Republican Jack Ciattarelli were clear warning signs that Democrats had already lost the public's trust less than a year into the Biden administration.
That recent history has to worry Republicans. Former Democratic Representative Abigail Spanberger led the last two public polls of the race against Republican Winsome Earle-Sears by 17 and 12 points. And in the only polls taken of the race between Democrat Mikie Sherrill and Ciattarelli in New Jersey, Sherrill led by 21 and 8 points. Are Democrats likely to win by those margins? Probably not, but these are already Democratic-leaning states that could tilt toward a big, blue blowout if the political environment for Trump and the Republicans doesn't improve quickly.
The bad news for Republicans doesn't end with the House. While Democrats are a distinct underdog in the race to control the Senate, they scored a major victory this week when Roy Cooper, the popular former Democratic governor of North Carolina, announced he would seek the seat being vacated by the retiring Senator Thom Tillis. Democrats are already favored in Maine, where 72 year-old Senator Susan Collins' remarkable run of defying partisan polarization seems unlikely to continue even if she chooses not to retire. But even assuming Democrats win all the battleground state seats they have to defend, including Michigan and Georgia, flipping North Carolina and Maine would still leave them two seats short of a majority.
But Republican primary voters might own-goal themselves yet again. Democrats are eagerly watching the mess unfolding in Texas, where scandal-ridden extremist Ken Paxton is ahead in limited polling against incumbent Republican Senator John Cornyn. While he would probably still be the favorite, a Paxton win in the primary would without question put Texas in play. Even with a Texas miracle, though, Democrats will still need to win a race in at least one state that Donald Trump carried by double digits in 2024, whether that's Iowa, Alaska, Florida, or Nebraska. It's an extremely heavy lift, but Republicans certainly can't feel as secure about their lock on the Senate as they did after November's elections unexpectedly left them with a seemingly insurmountable 53 seats.
Is there anything Republicans could do to avoid the fate that almost every president's party has met in the midterm elections? For starters, President Trump would need to stop doing unpopular things—like building a lavishly funded internal detention gulag, securing trade "deals" that make daily life more expensive for ordinary Americans, and wasting his time whining about what D.C.'s football team is named, or what's happening in the writer's room of adult cartoon TV shows—and start governing in a way that isn't designed to deliberately alienate more than half the country.
I'm no gambling whiz, but I certainly wouldn't bet on that.
David Faris is a professor of political science at Roosevelt University and the author of It's Time to Fight Dirty: How Democrats Can Build a Lasting Majority in American Politics. His writing has appeared in Slate, The Week, The Washington Post, The New Republic, Washington Monthly, and more. You can find him on Twitter @davidmfaris and Bluesky @davidfaris.bsky.social.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
25 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Editorial: More unlawful tariffs: Trump has no authority to institute damaging trade barriers
On Friday, Donald Trump followed up a concerning jobs report with massive new global tariffs, driving markets down and once more raising prices on consumers for no reason after weeks of supposed trade negotiations. Like with his first round of import duties, announced in the Rose Garden on his ludicrous April 2 'Liberation Day,' these tariffs are not only chaotic and destructive, but they're illegal. The president is leaning on a 1977 law meant to be invoked for targeted financial actions in certain emergency circumstances to reshape trade globally. Just the day before these newest tariffs were implemented, the administration's lawyers had been grilled by the 11 judges of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, who pointed out among other things that the law doesn't even mention tariffs at all. If the plaintiffs, made up of states and businesses, need anywhere to look for inspiration and evidence for their legal arguments, they don't have to look much further than Trump's own ramblings and social media feed, where he constantly tells the whole world that he is engaging in the tariff actions for all manner of reasons completely unrelated to any economic objectives. So far, he's threatened tariffs over Brazil's domestic prosecution of its former president Jair Bolsonaro and over Canada's intent to recognize a Palestinian state, among other things. This is a real disparate set of rationales, but what they have in common is that they are ideological battles probably drawn from something Trump saw on TV and have nothing to do with correcting a supposed trade imbalance with those countries, already an incredibly flimsy argument to begin with. Don't just take our word for it; the Manhattan-based U.S. Court of International Trade — you know, the judicial entity set up specifically and explicitly to have expertise on these matters — already struck down most of Trump's tariff regime on the grounds that it was unlawful. That ruling has been stayed for now, but the evidence just keeps piling on that Trump is significantly exceeding his authority. Unfortunately, even if this insanity were to be fully struck down tomorrow, we've had months of chaos that has indelibly damaged trade relationships as well as general diplomatic relations. The world is not going to wait for the U.S. to hash out its chaos, and other countries are already moving to reorient parts of their manufacturing and trade schemes to circumvent an unreliable United States. Of course, this seems like one more issue headed at some point to the U.S. Supreme Court, perhaps the shadow docket where the court these days like to conduct its unsigned pro-Trump business. It's long since become clear that the high court is more interested in ideological outcomes than the uniform application of the law, but even then, siding with Trump here would be farcical. This is the exact same court that just last year ruled that Joe Biden attempting to clear some student debt by invoking emergency powers in the context of the COVID pandemic — a real global catastrophe that killed countless people and crashed the economy while putting millions out of work — was an unlawful exercise of authority. If that's the case, but Trump is in his rights to wildly alter tariff policies at a whim in service to random political grievances around the world, then the law truly means nothing anymore. Let's stop this madness while we still can, before economic forces take it out of our hands. ___
CNBC
25 minutes ago
- CNBC
Dollar weakens as rate cut odds rise, tariff uncertainties linger
The U.S. dollar wavered on Tuesday as the rising odds of Federal Reserve rate cuts weighed on sentiment, while investors assessed the broader economic impact of U.S. tariffs unleashed last week. The dollar remained under pressure following Friday's U.S. jobs report that showed cracks in the labor market, prompting traders to swiftly price in rate cuts next month. U.S. President Donald Trump's firing of a top statistics official and the resignation of Federal Reserve Governor Adriana Kugler also exacerbated market unease, leading to a sharp dive in the dollar on Friday. The U.S. currency found its footing on Monday but was weaker in early trading on Tuesday. The euro last bought $1.1579 while sterling stood at $1.3298. The dollar index, which measures the U.S. currency against six other units, was at 98.688 after touching a one-week low earlier in the session. Traders are now pricing in a 94.4% chance of the Fed cutting rates in its next meeting in September, compared to 63% a week earlier, CME FedWatch tool showed. Goldman Sachs expects the Fed to deliver three consecutive 25 basis point cuts starting in September, with a 50 basis point move possible if the unemployment rate climbs further in the next report. San Francisco Federal Reserve Bank President Mary Daly said on Monday that given mounting evidence that the U.S. jobs market is softening and no signs of persistent tariff-driven inflation, the time is nearing for rate cuts. "I was willing to wait another cycle, but I can't wait forever," Daly said. Meanwhile, the focus remains on tariff uncertainties after the latest duties imposed on scores of countries last week by Trump, stoked worries about the health of the global economy. The Japanese yen firmed slightly to 146.95 per dollar after minutes of its June policy meeting showed a few Bank of Japan board members said the central bank would consider resuming interest rate increases if trade frictions de-escalate. The Swiss franc was steady at 0.8081 per dollar after dropping 0.5% in the previous session as Switzerland geared up to make a "more attractive offer" in trade talks with Washington to avert a 39% U.S. import tariff on Swiss goods that threatens to hammer its export-driven economy. The long-term impact of the tariffs though remains uncertain, with traders bracing for volatility. "This is going to be like the pandemic, we all expect to see the transitory impact on supply chains to happen very quickly," said Rodrigo Catril, currency strategist at National Australia Bank in Sydney. "It'll probably take six months to a year to see exactly where we land and who's going to be winners and losers from all this." In other currencies, the Australian dollar was 0.11% higher at $0.64736, while the New Zealand dollar rose 0.11% to $0.5914. "We're still of a view that the big dollar is heading down," Catril said, referring to the U.S. dollar. "While global growth means pro-growth currencies like Asian currencies and the AUD should struggle, we've other structural dynamics in the USD, where policies are dollar-negative."
USA Today
26 minutes ago
- USA Today
Texas Democrats look bad in redistricting fight. Republicans look even worse.
It's obvious that Republicans' bid to redraw Texas' congressional districts, which were approved in 2021, is a raw power grab. I guess it's too much to ask for my home state of Texas to make national news for something that's cool or influential. It's not often that I side with neither Republicans nor Democrats in Texas. But the redistricting debacle making national news is one of those times. I don't know what's worse: That Texas Gov. Greg Abbott threatened to remove House Democrats from office if they didn't return to the Capitol on Aug. 4. That the Texas House on Aug. 4 passed a motion allowing Speaker Dustin Burrows to issue arrest warrants for Democrats who skipped the legislative session. That Democrats in the state House fled Texas for Illinois and New York to prevent the legislature from voting on new congressional district maps. Or that House Republicans, in a bizarre power grab, are trying to redraw congressional maps to ensure that the GOP has an even stronger hold on the state and a better chance of retaining the U.S. House in the 2026 midterm elections. Is this the wild West? The chaos in Texas now threatens to spread to other states. California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said they will consider redrawing maps to heavily favor the political party in power in their state. Where will the madness end? Democrats fleeing Texas is not a good look It's a challenge to be a Democratic politician in Texas. They are vastly outnumbered, and those who do hold office have little power. I understand why Democrats are angry. Texas was historically a Democratic stronghold. But Republicans have held the governor's office for the past 30 years and controlled the state legislature for more than two decades. Not a single Democrat serves in statewide office now. Every few years, progressives and the news media champion a Democratic savior who is supposed to be the one to finally turn Texas blue. But candidates like Beto O'Rourke fail repeatedly. Now, along come Texas Republicans trying to gerrymander themselves to even more power. Still, the Democratic leaders fleeing Texas for Illinois and New York are hurting their party's image in our state. Opinion: Democrats have devolved into a clown show. No wonder polls show voters prefer GOP. In a post on X, Rep. Ann Johnson, a Democrat from Houston, tried to make her fellow lawmakers' cowardly retreat noble. "They're willing to break the law to cling to power," Johnson wrote. "We're willing to break quorum to protect it. We don't stand by. We stand up." "We stand up" by fleeing the state is not the winning message that she thinks it is. Texas House Republicans are engaged in a power grab As bad as House Democrats look, however, I have a bigger complaint about Republican legislators. GOP lawmakers have admitted that they are redrawing congressional districts to help Republicans gain even more power. 'Different from everyone else, I'm telling you, I'm not beating around the bush,' Corpus Christi Republican Rep. Todd Hunter, who authored the redistricting bill, said in a hearing. 'We have five new districts, and these five new districts are based on political performance.' I appreciate Hunter's honesty. It's obvious that Republicans' bid to redraw the congressional districts, which were approved in 2021, is a raw power grab. It's unethical and unnecessary. Republicans have reshaped politics and policy in the state over the past 30 years. Voters have given them that power because they have grown the economy and protected our freedoms. Opinion: GDP soars and Trump's economy roars. Liberals still won't give him credit. I love living in Texas because the state's culture matches my conservative values. It's full of history, beauty and gun-carrying, freedom-loving, patriotic men and women. And that's exactly how we convert all those expats from California to become conservatives ‒ through our values, policies and way of life. Not through stupid redistricting efforts that create a national spectacle. I hope the next time Texas makes national news it's because the Dallas Cowboys are ready to win the Super Bowl. Nicole Russell is a columnist at USA TODAY and a mother of four who lives in Texas. Contact her at nrussell@ and follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @russell_nm. Sign up for her weekly newsletter, The Right Track, here.
