GOP lawmakers are growing increasingly concerned over signs the 2026 midterm elections could be a wipeout for Republicans that could cost them control of the House and shave down their Senate majority by two or three seats.
There’s growing anxiety in the Senate and House GOP conferences that Trump’s sinking approval rating will create a headwind in swing states and districts.
But GOP lawmakers say they still have time to improve their party’s image before next November.
80 Comments
Yawweee877h444@lemmy.world · 104 pts · 295d
I have zero confidence the republican voter base won't just push the big red button right into full blown authoritarian fascism.
Maybe they won't. Im just not confident. They're very easy to manipulate a few weeks out before election time.
SkyezOpen@lemmy.world · 46 pts · 295d
"Well I don't like fascism but ThE LiBrUlZ"
Most will still vote red. Maybe a large chunk just won't vote and that's the best we can expect.
DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 34 pts · 295d
I saw a post where a disappointed MAGA called out Trump and then said he wouldn't vote in the next election.
That's the way he saw it; vote for the GOP or don't vote at all.
asRomeBurns1979@lemmy.world · 22 pts · 295d
I mean if you’re a pro-gun, pro-life, capitalist evangelical who wants less immigration - not voting is the best we can hope for.
DagwoodIII@piefed.social · 9 pts · 295d
Fair point.
Captainvaqina@sh.itjust.works · 6 pts · 295d
Actually, the best we can hope for is that they get kidnapped and disappeared by the very nazis they voted for.
Less trash to deal with.
theunknownmuncher@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 295d
The "big red button" is not in the voting booth
blattrules@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 295d
They absolutely will still vote red, but hopefully they’ve pissed off enough independents and nonvoters to persuade them to go vote.
Rhaedas@fedia.io · 15 pts · 295d
Politics loves our short term memory. They just need the right timing of some media story or crisis and people forget everything before.
spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works · 10 pts · 295d
For all their histrionics about personal freedoms (only for themselves of course), a big chunk of Republicans are just looking for daddy to take care of them. Life is easier when you don't to make decisions and you have zero responsibility for your own mistakes. That felony conviction is no problem because daddy will forgive (and pardon) you.
Add to that the fact that nothing gets Republicans more aroused than taking freedoms away from people they don't like and making them suffer, and authoritarianism seems ideal. Trump and his ilk are perfect reflections of their sadistic MAGA base.
A significant majority of the GQP base and has already chosen full blown authoritarian fascism.
Scotty_Trees@lemmy.world · 6 pts · 295d
Expect +80% of them to still vote red no matter what.
timbuck2themoon@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 294d
Well a caravan of immigrants will magically appear a few weeks before the election again and magically disappear the day after.
circuitfarmer@lemmy.world · 45 pts · 295d
spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works · 27 pts · 295d
A Republican I spoke to was fully convinced that living in a state with more land per capita should make each person's vote worth more, while those living in a densely populated state should expect their votes to be worth less. He thought it was perfectly reasonable for someone moving from California to Wyoming to have the value of their vote increase by almost 4x. He balked when asked if the value of a Wyoming vote should decrease by 75% when the voter moved to California.
I can only imagine the impassioned whining if the situation were reversed and biased for liberals.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works · -20 pts · 294d
This is a boring narrative. The system isn't stacked in favor of the GOP, it's stacked in favor of parties that play by the actual rules. If a party can't make a compelling message to multiple different states, it's on them.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip · 9 pts · 294d
Wrong.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works · -5 pts · 294d
Why? because it feels better to say the system is rigged than admit Democrats sold out the working class across the country and are reaping the benefits?
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 294d
What do you mean why? The electoral college has been utterly broken since they froze the number of house seats in 1929. It gets worse every year as population increases. This causes low population states to have way more representation in the House, influence over the presidency, and through that and the Senate, the SCOTUS, than they're designed to. And since racism seems to play well to the rural folk who love to vote against their own interests, this has given Republicans a significant advantage.
This is on top of the blatant gerrymandering that Republicans do in red states (look at Ohio which voted under maps that were deemed illegal). And the blatant voter suppression actions taken every cycle.
Are corporate Democrats also failing to be appealing? Yes, but that doesn't mean the board isn't also tilted against them. The fact that Clinton had like 8 million more votes in 2016 but still "lost" is proof. SCOTUS stealing the election from Gore is also proof.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works · -3 pts · 294d
The low limit on the house is a problem for representation in general, but it doesn't change the presidential election much. Trump would have still won the election if there were 800 representatives in the house, though it would have been closer.
The popular vote is irrelevant for the presidency, so your proving my point by bringing it up. It's not relevant to the rules of the election.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 294d
False. The distribution of seats requires a lot of skewing to fit the vastly different sizes of populations.
I'm not proving your point at all. The fact that we don't listen to the cast majority of people to represent the country as a whole is dumb. The fact that your presence in a state that votes differently from you actually works AGAINST you, is even dumber.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works · -1 pts · 293d
The apportionment formula is straightforward, you can find calculators to see what would happen as more representatives gets added. It's not magic.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 6 pts · 294d
Hahahaha WHAT?
ryathal@sh.itjust.works · -2 pts · 294d
The rules are get 270 electoral votes, not get the most votes. This generally requires winning the majority of states.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 294d
Except you can "win" the election with something absurd like 27 votes, against 100 million.
Any system where that's an actual possibility is fucking stupid.
ryathal@sh.itjust.works · 0 pts · 293d
Sure in theory if only a single person voted in the 12 largest states you could win that way, but that's not really possible.
Bronzebeard@lemmy.zip · 2 pts · 293d
You can also "normally" win just the smallest states, and win with states representing only ~25% of the population. If you want something more realistically fucking stupid and completely disqualifying for an electoral system
ryathal@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 293d
That's equally hypothetical, winning the ~36 smallest states by a single vote and getting no other votes.
LadyMeow@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 35 pts · 295d
A ‘wipeout’, they would still control two of three, but it’s going to be disastrous!
We need more than ‘shave down their lead’
SabinStargem@lemmy.today · 34 pts · 294d
I would like BOTH parties to go extinct. The Democratic leadership has no spine and waffles at best, the Republicans are evil by default.
phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 13 pts · 294d
Replacing the Dems' leadership might actually help. The Republican Party, though, is rotten to the core.
Formfiller@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 294d
They’re both owned by Israel. Nothing is going to change until we end the Israeli occupation of our government
SoloCritical@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 294d
lol “one party could do better while the other will murder every man woman and child in sight, they’re both the same!!”
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 12 pts · 294d
Not at all what they said. What they said was one party is right wing light, the other is fascist, and due to that we need entirely new parties.
Try gaslighting somewhere else.
SoloCritical@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 294d
That’s literally not what they said but okay.
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · -5 pts · 294d
Gaslighting some more? Damn you're stupider than MAGA.
That's literally what they said, pedo protector.
Your tag is now: Pedo Protecting Gaslighter
SoloCritical@lemmy.world · -2 pts · 294d
Projection much?
AngryCommieKender@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 294d
Are you now announcing your tactics, Pokemon style?
spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works · 33 pts · 294d
There is no way you can lay off 300,000+ federal workers, shut the entire federal government down for 40 days, dramatically increase prices by imposing tariffs, shut down food and other exports by pissing off the buying countries, and allow huge increases in heathcare insurance premiums without causing a recession or worse. Trump and his ilk know it too which is why any economic data they do release will be altered by Trump loyalists, facts be damned.
No_Ones_Slick_Like_Gaston@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 294d
I want to believe, but he won in 2024 after increasing the US debt 25%, having excess death of Covid of 1MM and basin his whole agenda on dunking on the poor, where most of us are still. Morons voted him in.
spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works · 12 pts · 294d
Even Maga notice it when food prices go way up, when they lose health insurance, and when they lose their jobs. We'll eventually reach a tipping point where the sadistic pleasure Maga morons gets from hurting others isn't worth the pain they're experiencing themselves. I hope its soon.
Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 6 pts · 294d
They believe the other option would have resulted in even worse outcome. As long as they can imagine it being worse, they can believe voting for their (misguided, but not as much as the other) team is the right thing to do.
The silver lining is that if their team is less inspirational, some voters will become discouraged and stay home instead of voting.
Tehbaz@lemmy.wtf · 4 pts · 294d
They are so addicted to their right-wing echo chamber media that they will never know that Orange Jesus is fully responsible for any of the direct pain they will experience. All they will hear is that somehow it's all Joe Biden and Barack HUSSEINs fault that they can't afford to stuff their faces.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 3 pts · 294d
They will blame it on Democrats because that's what their media bubble tells them to do.
I have been hammering my MAGA parents with articles that I know they could never defend in a face to face discussion so that they cannot say they didn't know, and they know exactly why all of this happened.
Still not exactly optimistic that it'll work.
zbyte64@awful.systems · 13 pts · 294d
Democratic donors be like: "we can run anyone and they can't say no!"
KelvarCherry@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 17 pts · 294d
That's why we NEED progressives in the primaries. The real battles will be in that race. If establishment Democrats keep control, Republicans will sweep again from 2028 or 2032; just like what happened after Trump's first term.
I hate that we have fight the Democrats to keep the Democrats alive, but we do.
Foni@lemmy.zip · 19 pts · 295d
The last time Republicans played with tariffs, it took them about a decade to regain power and about three decades to regain the initiative in the debate. Unless they break democracy and invalidate the results somehow, I think that's where we're headed.
phoenixz@lemmy.ca · 19 pts · 294d
IF the Democrats get a huge win, like in the 70%or something, I'm sure they'll squander it like there is no tomorrow. They VOULD impeach trump a dozen times over but they'll start just threatening with letters or some shit.
The US Democrats are the worst political group world wide, only surpassed by US Republicans who are just plain evil clowns
RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world · 4 pts · 294d
The choices have devolved to “fascists” or fucking do-nothing idiots at this point.
Alcoholicorn@mander.xyz · 4 pts · 293d
Team Fascists and Team "actually the Fascists are right, we need more money for ICE, more wall, and the most lethal military ever"
Formfiller@lemmy.world · 19 pts · 294d
Guillotine for president 2026!
salacious_coaster@infosec.pub · 17 pts · 295d
Can't wait to see how the Democrats either fuck this up entirely or just fail to do anything productive with the gains.
devolution@lemmy.world · 15 pts · 295d
Not if Schumer and Jeffries have anything to say about it...
bitjunkie@lemmy.world · 13 pts · 294d
Not alarmed enough to actually enact policies that are popular with the majority of the people.
Tilgare@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 293d
That's one thing you DON'T have to worry about them learning here.
ininewcrow@lemmy.ca · 12 pts · 295d
I'm not hoping for it .... America has a habit of being dumb as a brick and electing people that eat crayons.
SCmSTR@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 11 pts · 295d
All I have to say to them is:
G-G-G-G-GET FUCKED-ucked-ucked-ucked-ucked-ucked
partofthevoice@lemmy.zip · 5 pts · 294d
G-GE-GET-GET F-GET FU-GET FUC-GET FUCK-GET FUCKE-GET FUCKED-ET FUCKED-T FUCKED-UCKED-CKED-KED-ED-D
Formfiller@lemmy.world · 7 pts · 294d
Democrats better not mess this up and we do mean it this time. Prison for every single traitor, pedofile and seditious oligarch. Musk and Thiel better be first in line. We want their assets frozen and used to repair the damage to our democracy. The Supreme Court better get cleaned up with impeachments. This is their last chance before guillotine second amendment time. Also anyone who takes money from Israel should now be declared an enemy combatant
spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works · 15 pts · 294d
Is that a joke? Of course they'll fuck it up.
Formfiller@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 294d
Well then it’s guillotine time I guess.
Randomgal@lemmy.ca · 4 pts · 294d
You still had any hope? lmao
You are cattle to the billionaires, regardless of what color they wear.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 2 pts · 294d
🥱
KelvarCherry@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 294d
Run in the primary for your House of Representative seat to do everything Formfiller said.
Lyrl@lemmy.dbzer0.com · 2 pts · 294d
The 2026 optimistic projection is House Democrat majority, and Senate Republican majority (but narrower majority than now). And Trump will still be President in 2026.
How are Democrats supposed to imprison (executive branch) or impeach (Senate required for conviction) in 2026?
ryathal@sh.itjust.works · 2 pts · 294d
Just the house is powerful if the Democrats are brave. They can force concessions on bills, continue investigating corrupt bullshit, and impeach judges and cabinet members (Trump himself probably isn't a good idea). A 51-49 Senate looks a lot different when Republicans are facing a post Trump world. Trump can pardon people, but that doesn't prevent removal from office or impeachment trials.
Maeve@kbin.earth · 1 pts · 294d
Right! Like 2a people would overthrow a fascist dictator at home with 34 convicted felonies and a treason, like they didn't cave by checks notes caving to a budget impasse right after a bunch won elections this very month.
aeternum@lemmy.blahaj.zone · 2 pts · 294d
Formfiller@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 294d
We’re all 2a people
Maeve@kbin.earth · 0 pts · 294d
🥱
phutatorius@lemmy.zip · 6 pts · 294d
After a certain point, gerrymanders are counterpruductive. It'll be nice if the other electoral fuckery such as voter-roll purges and voter suppression aren't enough to stop it. But I'm not optimistic.
moakley@lemmy.world · 5 pts · 293d
That's not a wipeout then.
bradinutah@thelemmy.club · 5 pts · 294d
After so much crying wolf, you've got to be super stupid to believe anything Republicans say for 2026. They should have zero credibility for supporting the Liar in Chief. Of course, there's still a lot of weak marks ready to be conned again. Wise up, American voters!
GhostedIC@sh.itjust.works · 4 pts · 293d
I remember when they were alarmed over a 2024 election wipeout.
myfunnyaccountname@lemmy.zip · 3 pts · 293d
Who will protect the pedophiles if they lose? I mean, the democrats won’t actually do anything. But the GOP won’t have the power to protect them.
IndustryStandard@lemmy.world · 3 pts · 294d
No worries there are only establishment Democrats and the "progressives" are actively working against the "vote them out" mantra adopted after the last elections.
kandoh@reddthat.com · 2 pts · 294d
They're going to lose their majority in the house months before the midterms even happen
altphoto@lemmy.today · 1 pts · 294d
I'll believe it when I see it.
spaghettiwestern@sh.itjust.works · 1 pts · 295d
https://archive.ph/VifwK