Republicans Predict Losses for Reasons Other Than Election Fraud

In early May, the Washington Post published a story about the work of White House lawyers to prepare political appointees for congressional oversight in 2027. They did so “as staff [began] to brace for the likelihood of significant Democratic victories in the November midterm elections,” the Post reported.

Even as far back as the spring, Republicans were beginning to telegraph that the electoral winds were not blowing in their favor. Historical trends suggest that the president’s party doesn’t fare well in the Midterm elections, to begin with. Just twice since 1938 has it gained seats in the House (1998 and 2002), and it has been much more common for it to lose several Senate seats than it has been to net a couple or a few. But with President Trump’s public approval declining further below 40 percent consistently throughout 2026, Democrats’ electoral prospects have been rosy for several months.

Nevertheless, Trump and some of his vocal allies have predicted that election fraud, not his own unpopularity, nor the typical ebb and flow of party success over election cycles, nor another reason having to do with his side’s or the Democrats’ qualities, would be to blame for a poor showing from Republicans in November. Trump, in fact, told the Washington Examiner last week that he thinks his real approval rating with Americans is 60 percent — a self-assessment that is bluster, delusion, or both. Insisting that it is the case, however, provides him with the justification for pinning his party’s losses on someone or something outside the Oval Office, including cheating.

Such a tactic, however, is being undermined by Republicans in Congress, on the campaign trail, and even by his own aides, whose finger-pointing has increased during the last few weeks. As the polls indicate that Democrats are heavy favorites to win the House and are building momentum to flip enough typically “red” seats to contest control of the Senate, these individuals’ analyses reflect the actual state of play. We have compiled and categorized a list of them to share, in the spirit of “expectations setting” for readers. (We will do the same about Democrats and their own expectations tomorrow.)

Snags and goofs in the election process itself will happen in the coming days; with well more than 100 million voters across thousands of jurisdictions, the mere existence of human and technical errors is inevitable. The questions, as always, will be about the scale of them, the outcomes of them, and the reasons for them. History indicates that the answers will be “limited,” “quickly resolved,” and “not fraud,” respectively, even if there are exceptions to the second, and much less so the first and third. We will document such exceptions, as well as lesser cases that attract outsize attention. But it is civic-minded to contextualize them as not being responsible for altering history — as the Republicans who have come to grips with the likelihood of net losses on Election Day are implying.

A list of reasons

There are two general categories of reasons that Republicans have been giving to the press for why they have such a dim outlook this year: policy and people.

In the story excerpts shared below, you will see in the first category the cost of living, the Iran war, gas prices, and empty promises made during the 2024 campaign overall. Trump has focused on Congress’s inability to pass the SAVE America Act — not necessarily because it has demoralized Republican voters, but because it will allow Democrats to cheat to win. The first set of policy concerns are grounded in reality. This second one is not.

The second category, of peer-to-peer blame, is common during every failed election. Many campaign consultants and incumbents and candidates (almost always given anonymity to speak) have said that Trump himself is weighing them down. Some consultants and Republican commentators have noted that the party has a serious “candidate quality” problem in too many close races. And from the opposite perspective, Trump and unnamed White House aides with beefs have identified Susie Wiles, who is Trump’s chief of staff, and James Blair, his deputy chief of staff and top Midterm strategist, as culprits.

Consider: Would all this narrative-setting be happening if party leadership actually believed that electoral fraud was going to be an impediment to success, much less the biggest one?

Excerpts

Following is a non-exhaustive, chronological list of examples of the above — in some cases of Republican leaders simply conceding that the writing is on the wall, as in the case of House speaker Mike Johnson.

The party could, of course, outperform the low bar being set. But if they fail to, these were the reasons for setting it.

—

Reuters, 9/2:

• Top aides to President Donald Trump are pushing to keep the Iran war from escalating before November’s midterm elections to staunch Republican electoral losses, four people familiar with the discussions said, a strategy already under strain as the U.S. and Iran exchanged back-and-forth attacks overnight.
  
  

Washington Post, 9/19:

• Trump in recent weeks has become sober about the gravity of the political situation, listening intently as he is presented with often discouraging polling, according to four people with knowledge of his recent comments, all of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. That shift has prompted him to take more action on the midterms — pledging to stump for candidates and opening his war chest in competitive races, for example — although it remains to be seen how effectively Republicans can gain ground over the next six weeks.
  
  Trump has long dismissed unfavorable polls, fastening his attention on surveys that present him in an artificially positive light. He often says that negative surveys are fake and not to be believed. Increasingly, however, he has accepted his team’s polling that shows his and his party’s poor standing with voters, his advisers say.
  
  Several of Trump’s advisers said they had become “increasingly blunt” with him, as one put it, and that in recent weeks he was listening to them about the electoral reality the GOP faces.
  
  

CNN, 9/28:

• Trump advisers have privately acknowledged that there’s little expectation he can win over large numbers of independents and swing voters, which was part of his path to victory in critical states in 2024. And while they’re more concerned about losing control of the House, Republicans’ previous confidence that they can hold onto the Senate is dwindling by the day. …
  
  … This week, the Senate Leadership Fund increased its spending in Texas to $100 million to support GOP Senate candidate Ken Paxton in a state they haven’t lost in decades, exposing the party’s fresh worries about the Senate.
  
  And while one Republican operative said that the enormous sum was moving the needle in their direction “some,” it wasn’t clear it would be enough to reverse the strong political headwinds largely created by the president himself.
  
  Asked if there was anything Republicans could do to change the tide, the operative replied: “Go back in time and never start the war with Iran.”
  
  

Fox News, 10/8:

• EXCLUSIVE: “Heaven forbid, if we lose this majority or whatever, I don’t know what my next chapter of life is,” says SPEAKER JOHNSON as he opens up to me about the midterms. “If God moves on our hearts and says we should, you know, go back to my hometown of Shreveport and start a lawn business, I’ll do that with equal fervor. I mean, I just want to be of my highest and best use.. to God and to my country.”
  
  

CNN, 10/12:

• One House Republican running for re-election said of the president’s numbers: “Trump is dragging the party down.”
  
  The grim outlook gripping the GOP follows weeks of polling showing Republicans on track to lose the House amid intense voter anger over the Iran war and rising cost of living — and at grave risk of losing their once-solid majority in the Senate as well.
  
  …
  
  “We were all hoping the war was going to be over now, but it’s not,” said one Trump adviser. “We shouldn’t have a fight in a place like Texas, but obviously we do.”
  
  

Puck News, 10/13:

• President Donald Trump, whose historic unpopularity has weighed on Republicans everywhere this cycle, has proven largely incapable of getting out of his own way. But he is keenly aware of the grumbling within his party. “If we don’t win the midterms, they are going to blame me,” Trump said at a rally last weekend in Clarksville, Tennessee. “If we do win, I’ll get no credit whatsoever.” Not surprisingly, I’m told, the president has begun looking for someone else to take the fall. The guy currently at the top of the list: James Blair, his former deputy chief of staff and political director who crafted the party’s midterm strategy.
  
  Blair, of course, is perhaps best known as the architect of the G.O.P.’s misbegotten mid-decade redistricting campaign, which burned through tens of millions of dollars while provoking intense backlash from lawmakers forced to run in new districts. Now the effort is likely to backfire, especially in Texas and Florida districts that Republicans aggressively gerrymandered on the presumption that Trump’s 2024 coalition would hold. But the president alienated many of his swing constituencies, particularly Latinos and young men, putting formerly safe G.O.P. districts in play. “Trump is just setting James up to take the fall,” one Republican operative close to the White House told me. (Blair didn’t respond to a request for comment.)
  
  …
  
  Senate Republicans still expect to absorb some measure of blame from the president, who has repeatedly insisted that the upper chamber pass the SAVE America Act, even though Senate Majority Leader John Thune has insisted that the strict voter ID law would never overcome a filibuster. Senators have long viewed that demand as a setup to hold them responsible for a poor midterm result. But Blair remains the more immediate target, I’m told.
  
  

Politico, 10/14:

• Some top congressional Republicans have privately concluded that it is likely impossible for them to keep control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, and they are now focused on limiting the scale of the defeat and salvaging the party’s Senate majority.
  
  Five senior Republican lawmakers, all granted anonymity to speak candidly about their party’s dire position, told POLITICO the House had all but slipped away.
  
  One senior House Republican said the GOP’s goal at this point was to “save as many Republican seats as we can.” The president, this person said, was not helping.
  
  “President Trump has made this election all about himself,” the lawmaker said. “Now we have to survive that political storm.”
  

Punchbowl News, 10/15:

• The political environment is “certainly toxic for Republicans,” said Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), a 13-year veteran of Congress.
  
  Voters “were promised things in ‘24, and none of those things are really coming to fruition,” Joyce added. “My thing has always been, just be truthful with folks. Don’t go out there and tell them that it’s rosier than what it is.”
  
  Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), locked in one of the toughest races in the country, is puzzled by one dynamic: why did his leadership pretend this election would be good for Republicans when history says otherwise?
  
  “It’s an historical precedent that is rarely defied,” Fitzpatrick said of losing the majority in the midterms. “Moreover, a second midterm is historically more challenging than the first … Look at when history has been defied. After 9/11 — a major, major event that completely changed our country. In order to buck history, there has to be a reason history is bucked. Those factors are not present.”
  
  …
  
  Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), who represents a deep-red district, said he thinks Republicans will get blamed for high costs.
  
  “I think it’s our messaging,” he said. “And we don’t have the guts to take on Big Oil.”
  
  

Washington Post, 10/16:

• Internal GOP polling shows that support for Republican candidates cratered after the party’s midterm convention in Dallas, with voters saying the party was not attuned to their economic concerns, according to a Republican strategist briefed on the numbers. Rather than campaigning extensively in September, Trump spent much of the month hosting Chinese President Xi Jinping at the White House and working on his construction projects, including a new White House helipad and his proposed ballroom.
  
  

Reuters, 10/17:

• President Donald Trump is blaming senior aides and political operatives for a faltering midterm strategy, questioning campaign spending, faulting redistricting and second-guessing candidate choices as Republicans fight to retain control of Congress, said three people familiar with internal discussions.
  
  …
  
  Much of the friction has centered on James Blair, the longtime aide who runs Trump’s super PAC MAGA Inc., and White House chief of staff Susie Wiles, who until now had largely escaped criticism. Trump has faulted Blair’s handling of campaign funds, while some White House officials and allies have questioned Wiles’ oversight of the political operation.
  
  As Trump questions why campaign spending has failed to improve Republican polling numbers, his advisers are also blaming one another. Wiles has pointed to Blair, while Blair has faulted the White House legislative affairs team, one of the people said.
  
  “What’s really happening is a circular firing squad,” the person said.
  
  

Politico, 10/19:

• Republicans are already starting to blame each other as the midterm election spirals further out of their control.
  
  Everyone is bracing for President Donald Trump’s ire if the party loses big in November. House Republicans are planning to accuse the Senate side. Trump political aides have taken to directly calling campaigns they feel aren’t performing well enough. National GOP operatives are quietly furious at lackluster candidates who didn’t do enough to prepare for a tough year despite early warnings. And some GOP candidates are pointing the finger back at their own party committees.
  
  …
  
  Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-Ohio), who is widely expected to be the next National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, told reporters Thursday that “if the Democrats do win the House and the Senate, it won’t be because of their left-wing lunatic candidates, it’ll be because people are pissed off about gas prices, and I get that.”
  
  House Republicans are annoyed with Senate Republicans for fumbling a once-safe GOP map as well as creating top-of-the-ticket drag for them with bad candidates in some key states — but senators privately put the onus on Trump for forcing out better Republican incumbents and then backing flawed GOP candidates, including Ken Paxton in Texas, according to three GOP senators and a national GOP operative.
  
  

Bloomberg, 10/22:

• Former House speaker Kevin McCarthy: “It comes down to quality of candidates, is what’s happening. Republicans are having to compete in very safe seats, the Texases, the Kansases, the Ohios. I’m a big believer that — if you look at Collins in Maine, she’s defied the polls every time before, she’s actually sitting better than before. Alaska. In Iowa, we have an extraordinary candidate in Ashley Hinson — I think she is the best Senate candidate in the country. I think she wins. The real part Democrats are going to have a victory in are governorships. That concerns me long-term, because governorships manage a state, but governorships also bring an apparatus for a presidential run.”
  
  

The Independent, 10/27:

• “If you do not prevail in this election, despite having worked as hard as you’ve had, how do you intend to work with Democrats if they have control of the House or the Senate?” a reporter asked him Tuesday before he headed to Texas for back-to-back rallies in support of Republican candidates.
  
  “We’ll figure a way,” Trump said. The president mentioned that he has “strong” veto power, adding, “I hope that won’t be the case, but if it is, that’s happened before with many presidents. You have strong veto and you end up working out deals.”