2026 Midterm Elections

Trump loses 'Reluctant Right' voters as MAGA breaks apart

A new poll shows that President Donald Trump is losing support among young “reluctant right” voters who elected him in 2024. According to a report in the Washington Examiner, only two in five of young voters who only voted for Trump because they didn’t like Kamala Harris say they are committed to voting Republican in the fast-approaching midterms.

While 14 percent of that group says they will support only Democratic candidates, and 24 percent say they will vote for a mix of candidates, “many may well just stay home, said Stephen Hawkins, Global Director of Research for More in Common, a non-profit group that examines social faultlines,” explaining, “‘It’s not just, oh, he’s not doing as well as we thought he would be doing in terms of helping the economy turn around. It’s that there’s a sense it’s much worse than that, because the president is trying to distract from the Epstein scandal, and it’s coming at the expense of everyday Americans’ pocketbooks.’”

This shift has primarily been driven by younger Trump voters: “Overall, 11 percent of Gen Z and 8 percent of Millennial Trump voters say they will vote Democratic, compared with 3 percent of Gen X and Boomers.”

According to the Examiner, the Reluctant Right made up 20 percent of Trump’s electorate in 2024, describing them as “the most ambivalent cohort of Trump’s coalition, and the group most likely to have voted for Trump transactionally: the businessman who was ‘less bad’ than the alternative. Overall, the Reluctant Right gives Trump’s performance a rating of 52 out of 100. Compared with 93 for the MAGA Hardliners, 83 for Anti-Woke Conservatives, and 82 for Mainline Republicans.”

This shift comes as Trump’s approval rating has cratered to historic lows and the MAGA movement has seen a string of high-profile defections. Last week, prominent conservative media figure Tucker Carlson announced that he was leaving the Republican Party altogether after months of speaking against Trump, who he had supported since the beginning of his movement, playing a key role in promoting his election in 2016. Similarly, former Representative and Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene has made a dramatic exit from MAGA.

“The poll examined their impact on the coalition and found that they were not yet triggering a broader GOP defection,” said the Examiner. “Most Trump voters who have heard their criticism say it has not changed their views and some say it has actually made them more supportive of Trump.”

But according to Hawkins, these defections could be setting the stage for a rupture. As he explains, “What [Carlson is] doing is he’s undermining the sense that President Trump is on your side,” he said. “That was already weaker in the Reluctant Right. And he is giving voice to concerns that younger Republicans, younger conservatives have about President Trump to do with being too focused on personal projects, being involved in corruption, having to hide his Epstein affiliation by changing the subject to foreign policy, and then having a negative impact on prices in the economy.”

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GOP districts now a 'tossup' as MAGA cools on Trump

With the midterms looming and Republicans projected to take major losses, the party is doing everything it can to shore up support. But in the face of that, there is growing concern within the GOP that President Donald Trump is an “albatross” dragging the party down as MAGA enthusiasm cools.

An example of this cooling, according to the Times, can be found in New York’s 17th congressional district, a swing seat that could play a key role in determining the balance of power in the House of Representatives after November. To succeed in the midterms, says the Times, Trump must turn out the vote in districts like the 17th: “However, it is proving difficult to energise the MAGA base when the president himself is not on the ballot.”

The Times points to a conversation with Mahopac resident and retired railworker James Sedlmayer, who on one hand supports the president, saying that Trump Derangement Syndrome is a “real disease,” but on the other admits that he’s “less likely to vote this November.”

This sort of midterm apathy is a real problem for Republicans who currently enjoy a slim six-seat majority in the House. That means that if Democrats flip just three seats, the balance of power in Washington will shake up dramatically. And districts like New York’s 17th make that appear likely. As the Times points out, “This year, the Cook political report altered its prediction for New York’s 17th congressional district from ‘lean Republican’ to ‘tossup.’”

Highlighting the district’s importance in this fight was Trump’s appearance there in May, when he visited to campaign for Representative Mike Lawler (R-NY). Lawler has emerged as a staunch supporter of Trump’s war, telling constituents, “I don’t care if I’m paying more for gas.” Trump himself has declared that he doesn’t think “even a little bit” about the strain the war puts on American finances.

This message doesn’t seem to have landed with the voters the GOP most needs to persuade, as “most swing voters appear unenthused by the Iran war, with just 26 percent of independents supportive of the conflict compared to 79 percent of Republicans.” Meanwhile, Trump himself “has a net approval rating of minus 24, according to a recent YouGov poll for CBS, a figure that is worse than Biden at his lowest ebb.”

“He’s an albatross. There’s no doubt about it,” says Douglas Heye, a political strategist and former communications director of the Republican National Committee. “Trump not only has low approval ratings, he focuses our attention on things that aren’t important to voters. Voters don’t want to hear about reflecting pools and art institutions and arches and things like that. They want to hear, ‘here’s what we’re doing about costs, here’s how we’re going to fix the problem in Iran.’”

The consequences of his plunging popularity could be dire for Trump’s agenda. As the Times explains, “Losing control of the House would mean the second half of his final term becoming bogged down in Democrat impeachment proceedings and subpoenas for congressional appearances. Losing control of the Senate would allow the Democrats to block Trump’s future Supreme Court nominees and cabinet appointments.”

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'Short on time': GOP melts down as Trump fails yet again

During his second term, President Donald Trump has left hundreds of government positions vacant, and according to the latest reports, Republican lawmakers are melting down over concerns that his inaction could hurt their party with the midterms looming.

Per the Daily Beast, “More than two dozen federal court seats remain vacant, along with the top jobs at the Labor Department and the Food and Drug Administration, among scores of other unfilled positions. An anonymous senior White House official told Politico that Trump is in no rush, though. ‘Ultimately, we need to have the right people in those positions,’ the official said. ‘So if it’s acting for now, so be it. If it takes a little while to find that perfect person, then it takes a little while.’”

But Republican Senators do not share this patience, as they see the clock ticking on the midterm bomb that is poised to blow up their majority, which will seriously hinder their ability to confirm nominees.

“We’re running short on time,” said Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) who sits on the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee. “We’d love to get at least one or two of them and get it in the next tranche.” On judicial nominees specifically, Tuberville said he wants “as many as we can get,” adding, “I don’t know why we don’t have more.”

Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), a member of the Judiciary Committee, shares his concern, saying he “absolutely” wants to see more judges nominated before the midterms, calling judicial appointments “one of his greatest legacies, both first term and second.” His state, Texas, currently has three court vacancies but no nominees.

As the Daily Beast explains, “Trump inherited only about 40 judicial vacancies entering his current term — fewer than any president since Ronald Reagan — making the slow pace especially puzzling to some Republicans. Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley of Iowa has previously complained that the White House hasn’t nominated enough judges.”

But the nomination bottleneck isn’t just limited to the courts as the nominations of the Labor secretary and FDA commissioner must both pass through the HELP Committee, chaired by Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), who lost his primary last month after Trump endorsed a rival. Depending on how vengeful Cassidy is feeling, he could prove to be another stumbling block in the GOP’s nomination agenda. As one insider speaking anonymously put it, “Why give Cassidy a platform to get back at DJT?” Another Republican Senator predicted Cassidy might ‘play games’ with nominees.

A third White House source summed up the Senate’s feelings about the situation, saying, “I really don’t think a lot of senators are in any mood to give the president any wins because they’re frustrated with him.”

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Fox News analyst says Pope has exposed Trump as 'flailing lame-duck'

President Donald Trump is firmly in decline as a "flailing lame-duck," and according to one Fox News analyst, his high-profile feud with Pope Leo XIV has contributed significantly to his loss of support from all but his most devoted base.

Juan Williams is a longtime political analyst for Fox News, serving as one of the highly conservative network's few Democratic voices, and one who is not shy about speaking out critically against Trump. In a Monday morning piece for The Hill, Williams wrote that Trump is "sinking deep into disapproval with voters outside his far-right base," with his numbers sinking into "negative territory on the war in Iran, on the economy, and on immigration."

Amid that decline, Williams argued that there has been "a surprise political player" contributing to Trump's lame-duck downfall: "Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV."

"With the midterms approaching, the first American pope’s defiant opposition to Trump is coming into view as contributing to Trump’s status as a flailing lame-duck," Williams wrote. "Pope Leo is clear in saying Trump is out of step with Christianity’s core teachings: concern for the poor, skepticism of the rich, embrace of the refugees, and love for thy neighbor. These teachings are diametrically opposed to Trump starting war with Iran."

Williams further highlighted an April social media post from the Pope's official X account: “God does not bless any conflict. Anyone who is a disciple of Christ, the Prince of Peace, is never on the side of those who once wielded the sword and today drop bombs.”

Despite initially attempting to celebrate and take credit for the first-ever American Pope, Trump has since been engaged in a bitter and often one-sided feud with the Catholic leader, taking personal offense to his remarks calling for immigrants to be treated with dignity and opposing war. In response, the Pope has continued to issue statements construed as direct attacks against Trump's rhetoric, while mostly avoiding ever directly referring to the president.

"While Trump slides in the polls, the pope has climbed to be the most popular leader among Americans with a 57 percent favorability, according to Gallup," Williams added. "The Economist-YouGov polling has the pope with a net favorability of plus 32 while Trump has a rating of negative 22. Most Catholics, regardless of religious observance or demographic group, view Pope Leo favorably. That includes Catholics who regularly attend Mass and those who seldom or never do, according to Pew."

He contined: "When asked about Trump’s approach to Pope Leo in a June survey by the Pew Research Center, far more Catholics say Trump has been too critical of Leo (51 percent) than say he hasn’t been critical enough (4 percent). Trump’s response to the pontiff is to share offensive memes on social media suggesting he should be pope. He also falsely claimed that Pope Leo wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon. That’s not true, Mr. President."

Williams concluded with an argument that, in a political age "focused on the high cost of daily life, the rising power of super-rich autocrats and the dominance of artificial intelligence," voters in the U.S. are beginning to yearn for "the pope’s old-school Catholic teachings," as opposed to Trump's way of doing things.

"That hunger is far greater than support for Trump’s new wing on the White House, his bumbling renovation of the reflecting pool or building a golden archway entrance to Washington," he wrote. "Trump seems to have met his judgment day courtesy of the Chicago kid who became pope."

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GOP insider dismantles Trump’s 'dumb' election scam

Over the past several months, President Donald Trump has declared the passage of his voter ID law — called the SAVE American Act — his top legislative priority, saying that he will not sign any other bills until it is passed. Critics have argued that the bill will disenfranchise millions of voters, and that it’s part of Trump’s effort to manipulate the midterm elections in which Republicans are projected to take major losses. But as one top GOP insider has noted, Trump’s bill very well could “hurt” his party in the end.

“There's so much dumb about this fight, but the fact that the SAVE Act might well hurt the GOP electorally is the chef's kiss,” posted former Republican congressional staffer and DOJ lawyer Gregg Nunziata, who is currently the Executive Director at the Society for the Rule of Law.

He made this assertion along with a retweeted screenshot from a Washington Post op-ed published on Monday, in which University of Notre Dame law professor Derek T. Muller argues some of the more practical limitations to Trump’s SAVE Act. Among these, as Nunziata notes, is the fact that a law requiring voter ID could backfire for Republicans.

As Muller writes, “The bill’s design prefers IDs that Democrats tend to have more than Republicans do. It privileges passports, which Democrats own at higher rates than Republicans, and removes concealed carry licenses as permissible ID in several states. The bill also adds paperwork for married women who change their names, who are disproportionately Republicans. And it ends online voter registration for rural — mostly Republican — voters. If Republicans are hoping to gain an electoral edge with this bill, they are sorely mistaken.”

In other words, while the SAVE America Act is Trump’s effort to trim off pesky Democratic voters, it could have the exact opposite effect. The president and his MAGA loyalists are the only ones who don’t seem to realize this, as other Republican lawmakers have made it clear that they would rather SAVE disappear from the discourse.

As Muller’s op-ed elaborated, Republican state lawmakers in places like Texas and Florida are “hardly indifferent to election security, but the bill would tell them their ID laws are inadequate — not because they failed to verify voters, but because they used a different list of IDs.” Texas, for example, has its own voter ID laws that allow the use of recently expired driver's licenses, while Florida allows concealed carry licenses.

And not only would the creation of a standardized ID system across the country be a complicated, disruptive process, but with a consequential midterm election looming, attempting to implement such a complex endeavor could result in massive electoral chaos.

“Election law works best when rules are clear before voting begins,” says Muller. “If the bill passes in its present form, voters from Texas to Florida will be surprised this November that long-standing IDs are no longer acceptable. Lawmakers have not thought through the details of this bill. If Congress wishes to secure elections, it should set reasonable guardrails and allow the states to fill in the gaps.”

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'Insecure' Trump breaking under his own failures: conservative

According to conservative Washington Post contributor Ramesh Ponnuru, while President Donald Trump entered office aiming to “break the system,” that hasn’t panned out. Instead, writes Ponnuru, “the system is breaking him.”

Trump has received a barrage of bad news lately, explains Ponnuru. His approval rating is historically low, as “voters disapprove of his performance on issue after issue, from the economy to immigration to Iran.” His party is projected to lose the majority in the House, and it now appears vulnerable in the Senate.

While Trump has repeatedly tried to wage lawfare against his enemies, most of his attempted prosecutions have been “laughed out of court.” He’s had to retreat from his “shock-and-awe” deportation approach in liberal cities, and on his almost universally decried “slush fund” for J6ers. His “hairbrained scheme” to enact election laws in his favor has been rebuffed by an unwilling Congress. Inflation is hammering the economy, the war with Iran turned out to be a humiliating loss and “even an initiative as modest as the cleaning of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool has become a debacle.”

For the chief executive and his supporters, writes Ponnuru, “It’s all a big comedown from the first year of this presidential term, when Trump seemed to be bulldozing his critics: using the U.S. DOGE Service to slash the federal government, getting almost all of his Cabinet nominees confirmed, winning concessions from law schools and universities, using unilateral tariffs to restructure global commerce.”

But according to Ponnuru, Trump’s failures haven’t come due to the effective opposition of his opponents, but through a combination of “presidential hubris” and the system’s checks and balances.

“Trump acted as though voters chose him in 2024 because they loved everything about him, rather than because they hated inflation,” Ponnuru explains. “Since winning, he has taken a few steps that place upward pressure on prices — warring with Iran, imposing tariffs, trying to push interest rates down by intimidating the Federal Reserve — and done little to foster the impression that he cares about the public’s top concern.”

And as Trump’s popularity declines, writes Ponnuru, “we are also seeing the interaction of our constitutional system and a president who is neither interested in nor adept at working through it. A determined president can make the Justice Department issue frivolous indictments. He can’t make the courts respect them.” His efforts to slash the federal budget via DOGE were always destined to fail as “they would not have been able to make a dent in spending without action by Congress.” He also never secured congressional buy-in for the war with Iran, and “going to Congress for prior approval of the war, as constitutionally required, would have either built the needed support or shown that it would not materialize and spared both the country and Trump this defeat.”

As a result of all this, while Trump’s movement has had a few notable impacts that could prove lasting — such as the gutting of the Voting Rights Act — most of his policy endeavors are unlikely to stick. “The most enduring changes a president can make are the ones that the opposition party finds itself having to make peace with,” writes Ponnuru. “Think of the New Deal or the Reagan revolution. The Democrats have instead been radicalizing in response to Trump, which makes the president’s achievements — notably border control — more insecure.”

In the end, concludes Ponnuru, “The results of the Trump presidency so far are disappointing some of the people who voted for it. (Hence the poll findings.) But they ought to be encouraging in one important respect: It turns out that even in our era of heightened executive power, a president can’t consistently get his way through the sheer force of his will.”

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GOP bracing for disaster as 'out of sync' Trump ignores party officials’ pleas

Republicans are "bracing for a tough election season" heading into the 2026 midterms, according to a new report from The Hill, expressing concerns that President Donald Trump remains "out of sync" with the main issues concerning voters.

GOP lawmakers are eager to try and get legislation passed that could address affordability concerns that are weighing heavily on voters' minds, but Trump has continually made their prospects more difficult. In recent months, lawmakers have been frustrated by his remarks about not caring that Americans are struggling against rising costs, as well as his recent insistence that he will not sign a bipartisan affordable housing bill unless Congress passes new voter registration restrictions.

"Trump’s refusal to sign the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act is the latest troubling sign for GOP senators, who have pressed Trump for weeks to pay more personal attention to voters’ concerns about rising costs," The Hill detailed in a Monday morning report. "Instead, Trump’s off-the-cuff statements professing 'love' for higher inflation numbers and declaring he’s not thinking about the financial situations of American families while negotiating an end to the conflict with Iran have GOP candidates bracing for a tough election season."

"Living back in the 1970s, I remember I had a car that had about a 12 or 13-gallon gas tank, and when the prices went up, I didn’t have the money to fill it up. I was living literally gas tank to gas tank. We got to acknowledge those situations,” Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, told the outlet. “The American people will give you a lot of latitude in fixing a problem that they themselves are experiencing if they feel like you’re empathetic with what they’re dealing with and you have a plan to address it. Those are the two things we have to work on."

Trump's last-minute decision to cancel the signing ceremony for the housing bill reportedly left Senate Majority Leader John Thune "shocked." The president later dismissed concerns from his party about the move, insisting that "no one gives a s—— about housing."

Pleas from party officials for Trump to sell voters on the economic accomplishments of his second term have gone largely ignored, with The Hill noting that he is more "preoccupied with cracking down on Republicans who defy him and pushing for Congress to pass the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility (SAVE America) Act, which has virtually no chance of becoming law."

"His priorities are dealing with national security and voter integrity, and the voters’ biggest concerns are the economy," Republican strategist Ron Bonjean told the outlet. "His priorities aren’t syncing up with the voters’ concerns even though he believes he has the best interests of [Americans] at heart."

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Trump facing 'bleak' chances of fixing his biggest midterms problem: report

President Donald Trump and the Republican Party are in "a race against time," according to The Hill, as they face "bleak" odds of addressing one of voters' biggest concerns ahead of the midterm races.

The cost of living and general economic affordability remain the most pressing issues for voters this year, and numerous polls have indicated that a significant number of them blame Trump directly for the current state of affairs, particularly the problem of runaway inflation. In the face of his mounting unpopularity, the GOP has been staring down increasingly worse midterm odds and seems poised to lose one or both of its congressional majorities to Democrats in November.

According to a Monday morning report from The Hill, Trump and his party are desperately "hoping that inflation can be bent downward in time to revive their chances in November’s midterm elections," but their outlook is not strong.

"New data released late last week on personal consumption expenditures (PCE) showed inflation above 4 percent," the outlet explained. "Even excluding food and gas costs, so-called core inflation was at 3.4 percent for the year ending in May. This, in turn, makes an imminent reduction in interest rates by the Federal Reserve much less likely — despite Trump’s clamoring for it."

The report continued: "Gas prices also remain elevated, with the national average cost per gallon at $3.90 on Friday, according to AAA. Although down from its apex, this price is still almost $1 above the level that was seen just before Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked Iran in late February."

The Hill also noted some signs of hope for the party, specifically the plummeting cost of oil in the wake of Trump's shaky ceasefire deal with Iran. This, however, does not guarantee that the prices consumers see at the pump will be down enough before November.

“We have time, but we don’t have that much time,” GOP strategist Matt Mackowiak told The Hill. “There are several reasons for Republicans to believe things are going to get better. The questions are: How much better are they going to get, and how much are voters going to feel it?”

"The polling numbers demonstrate just how steep a climb the president and his party are facing," the outlet added. "Inflation is consistently the issue on which Trump performs worst when voters are asked about his performance in office. In the polling averages maintained by RealClearPolitics, Trump’s net rating is almost 40 points underwater on the topic. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released last week found that just 22 percent of adults approved of how Trump was handling their cost of living, while 69 percent disapproved."

It continued later: "Most pertinently of all, inflation has remained stubborn. In November 2024, the month of Trump’s reelection, the annualized rate of inflation was 2.7 percent. The reading one year later was exactly the same. The rate ebbed slightly at the start of this year, only to ramp up again as a consequence of the war with Iran."

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Republican tears into Trump for demanding ‘impossible task’ as midterms loom

President Donald Trump is saddling his own party with an "impossible task" with the all-important midterms looming, according to one GOP lawmaker, insisting upon his longstanding obsession with a bill that lacks the votes to pass in the Senate.

Last week, Trump refused to sign a bipartisan housing affordability bill until Republicans in Congress passed the SAVE America Act, a bill that would change election laws in ways that critics argue would disenfranchise millions of voters. Under the bill, Americans would be required to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote, such as a passport or birth certificate. Studies have found that millions of Americans lack quick and easy access to these sorts of documents.

So far, the bill has stalled out, as it lacks the 60 votes necessary to overcome the Senate's filibuster threshold. GOP leaders have also been resistant to Trump's demand that they bypass filibuster rules, or nuke the rule altogether, in order to pass the bill, which he insists is needed to combat his false claims of non-citizens committing widespread voter fraud. This obsession is now holding up a bill that could help address a major affordability pain point for voters, who have long signaled that the cost of living is their biggest concern heading into the 2026 midterms.

Speaking about the situation during a Sunday appearance on CNN, Sen. Thom Tillis, an outgoing North Carolina Republican and outspoken Trump critic, ripped into Trump's demand, arguing that it is making the party's job vastly more difficult heading into the midterms.

"You know, I have people telling me I need to implement the SAVE Act immediately in North Carolina, in a state that has voter ID," Tillis told host Jake Tapper. "[Why] do I, over the next four months, have to try to pursue the impossible task of implementing a bill that simply can’t be implemented in that timeframe?"

He continued: "Why are we doing more things that undermine our confidence in elections rather than getting the strong message out that will win for Republicans this year?... Win by the good results that Republicans have produced and stop undermining the confidence in the elections. This is a bedrock of our 250-year history of success as the democracy that changed the world. Let’s not mess with that between now and November."

Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and another scorned conservative rival of Trump, added during a recent CBS News interview that such voter ID measures were not needed at the national level, comparing it to the situation in his own state, which "had a reputation for corrupt elections" before ID laws were enacted.

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Trump insiders reveal he 'isn't sold' yet on his biggest 2028 decision

President Donald Trump has a massive decision to make for 2028 that could have wide-ranging consequences for the political landscape, but according to a new report from USA Today, he "isn't sold" yet on his available choices.

Despite his earlier musings about pushing for an illegal third term in the White House, Trump is term-limited by the Constitution and will have to leave office after the 2028 election. On his way out, he is expected to endorse a GOP presidential candidate, and given the huge sway he retains over Republican voters, that decision could ultimately decide who secures the nomination.

Even as he becomes more and more unpopular, Vice President JD Vance remains the presumptive favorite for the nomination. Trump, however, has remained mum about his endorsement plans, and he could very well throw the race to someone besides his running mate if he so chose.

Multiple sources who spoke to USA Today for a Sunday morning report indicated that Trump is far from certain about his big 2028 decision, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio being the other major contender vying for his approval.

"In conversations with nearly a dozen sources close to the White House, most of whom requested anonymity to discuss private interactions, allies of the president and vice president said Trump isn’t sold on Vance as his 2028 pick," the report detailed. "The president has been asking those around him what they think of Vance and Rubio, a more seasoned politician who has become one of Trump’s most trusted advisers on international affairs."

It continued: "It’s the ultimate game of 'The Apprentice,' and Trump feels he still has plenty of time to decide, one person close to the White House said. Vance has not said publicly whether he intends to run for higher office. But he’s been seizing the spotlight as he lays the foundation for a potential bid through the promotion of his new book, 'Communion,', 'Communion,' and interviews tied to the Iran peace negotiations. He insists he's focused on helping Republicans win the November midterms and excelling at the vice presidency."

It is reasonable to argue that Trump still has time to consider his endorsement plans. While speculation is perpetual, presidential campaign seasons do not typically kick into gear until, at the earliest, the prior midterms cycle wraps up, with candidates typically waiting a while after that to declare. Trump himself bucked that tradition, declaring almost immediately after the 2022 midterms, but reports suggest that this was mostly part of a plan to help him dodge prosecutions.

"Although the 2028 lineup is far from settled, speculation on the GOP side largely centers around the two highest-ranking Cabinet officials," USA Today continued. "The president is heavily focused on who has the best chance of winning, two people close to the White House said. And he’s looking at Rubio, a former Florida senator and 2016 presidential contender, and wondering if he’d have a better shot than Vance, they said. Vance has long been viewed as more closely aligned with the MAGA base, with Rubio facing suspicions about his work on immigration reform and hawkish record. But the Trump competitor-turned-close-ally has clearly made up ground."

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Inside the real reason Republicans are finally telling Trump to pound sand

Dispatch writer David M. Drucker dropped some truth on MS NOW’s “The Weekend” show on Saturday, explaining exactly why Republican leaders in the Senate are finally defying President Donald Trump by refusing to pass the SAVE Act.

Passing the act, which critics say will severely constrict voter access, will require unprecedented moves in the Senate, including the dismantling of the Senate filibuster and the removal of the Senate parliamentarian. Neither of that’s going to happen, however, because Republicans in the Senate can see the future whereas Trump — who is pushing 80 — sees very little future at all.

“What I find silly about this, but it kind of shows you where the President's head is at — which is the same place it's always at —,” he said suggestively, “is that what Republicans do unto you today, Democrats can do unto you tomorrow.”

“So go ahead and fire the parliamentarian, go ahead and scrap the filibuster. Democrats are going to be in power again sometime soon. Look at the past 25 years. This goes back and forth. And they will trash this bill. They'll [install] universal mail-in balloting. They'll do all these things that will force Texas and Florida and Idaho and all these red states to govern elections the way they want. We just played ping-pong doing this. So, the whole thing is just ridiculous,” Drucker said.

Drucker added that Trump’s time would be much better spent helping his party focus on economic issues to smooth Republicans' slide into the midterms — only that’s not going to happen, he said.

Outgoing Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kent.), who Trump had removed in the Republican primaries for daring to release the Epstein files, said on Thursday that Republicans can expect “an absolute shellacking” in November because “we’re wasting the opportunity that voters gave us.”

Drucker agreed on Tuesday, writing that Republicans hoping for Trump to pivot to the economy would be better off spending their time hunting “proof” of the “tooth fairy.” The very next day, Trump stomped a Congressional effort to pass a housing bill that would make home ownership for affordable.

“I am prescient, man,” Drucker told the MS NOW panel. “[Trump] is … a complicated political figure, but not a complicated man. He is singularly focused on his things that interest him and his grievances.”

“[H]e is approaching this presidency doing everything that he ever dreamed he might want to do from the very beginning,” Drucker added. “He never had any use for Congress from the very beginning. He never took well to criticism from voters, and so this is how he has been, and this is how he will be to finish out his last two and a half years.”

- YouTube youtu.be

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Epstein is trampling the future of the GOP: report

Salon reports the specter of Jeffrey Epstein appears to be looming over the Republican Party as the GOP struggles to maintain it’s delicate House and Senate majorities.

Republicans have seized on Epstein’s ties to Democratic figures like former President Bill Clinton, but it appears that Epstein lingers most heavily over the party with a president whose name peppers the Epstein files, and who worked so obviously to keep the files under wraps. Trump also labored to remove Republicans who favored exposing the Epstein files in Republican primaries.

This is giving Democrats an additional edge in a race that is already swinging heavily away from Republicans who have failed to reign in President Donald Trump’s various power grabs and his monetizing of the White House.

“The revelations from the files further fueled the widespread, bipartisan exasperation among voters with the wealthiest elites,” reports Salon. “The Epstein issue, two Democratic pollsters told The 19th, is rare for its high salience and far reach even among less politically engaged voters — and for the high levels of bipartisan agreement on the need for more action.”

Surveys from Navigator Research and progressive pollster Data for Progress buttress that argument, with both polls showing majorities of voters — including a majority of Republicans — believe “there hasn’t been enough accountability connected to Epstein’s crimes” and they want to see more arrests and prosecutions. The March Navigator poll, in particular, revealed the share of Americans who said they believed Trump administration officials should resign over the Epstein matter increased when they were informed about officials in other countries being arrested, fired or forced to resign over their Epstein connections.

“What has happened with the Epstein files is such a clear distillation of the frustration that Americans across different partisan ideologies, even Republicans, even MAGA Republicans, and certainly independents, feel that there’s a different set of rules — or that really no rules at all — for the elite who just seem to get ahead,” said Melissa Toufanian, managing director at Navigator.

The Navigator survey, revealed that half of Americans, including two-thirds of Democrats and nearly 60 percent of independents, said they believed the government was “definitely” covering up additional wrongdoing by Epstein. And 72 percent of Americans, including 70 percent of independents, 67 percent of non-MAGA Republicans and 57 percent of respondents identified as MAGA Republicans, demanded more arrests and prosecutions related to Epstein.

Sixty-four percent of surveyed adults, including two-thirds of independents and half of Republicans, said they believed Epstein’s crimes were “unsurprising and the result of a broader problem.”

This is giving Democrats a definite edge in the midterms after the party battled the White House and it’s foot-dragging Republican defense team in the House to release the files last year.

“It really cuts across every political divide in a way that we almost never see on other issues,” Toufanian said.

The number of red state candidates running on Epstein and the “Epstein class” demonstrates this, reports Salon. Texas Democratic senatorial candidate James Talarico and Ohio Democratic senatorial candidate Sherrod Brown appear to be getting good mileage out of their Republican opponents by campaigning against the Epstein class, as is Noah Taylor, an Army veteran running as a Democrat for the Senate in Kansas, and Dan Osborn, an independent Senate candidate in Nebraska.

“Osborn, who is challenging Sen. Pete Ricketts, issued a news release pointing to a campaign rally in which Ricketts and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas appeared together, calling them ‘birds of a feather who are content to carry out the agenda of the billionaire Epstein class,’” reports Salon.

And it definitely does not help that voters were not only highly aware of the Epstein files issue but were able to name specific figures connected to it, including Trump, who they believed to be part of the Epstein class, according to Data for Progress research.

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Election lawyer details game plan to stop Trump from sabotaging the midterms

Set for Tuesday, November 3, the United States' 2026 midterms are a little over four months away. And Democratic election lawyer Marc Elias has a warning: expect President Donald Trump to do everything he can to make the midterms as chaotic and stressful as possible.

Elias, publisher of Democracy Docket and a frequent guest on MS NOW, warned voters to expect the worst from Trump in an interview with The New Republic's Win McCormack and his wife Carol Butler.

“What we've seen from Donald Trump in the past is that he starts with lies; then, he increases the rhetoric behind the lies," Elias warned. "Then, you see the legal process. And then, when he fails in the legal process, we have violence. And I think that we are on that progression. He has lied about voting, he has now upped the rhetoric for all of the SAVE Act — which began as a proof-of-citizenship law. It's now become a voter suppression, voter purge, ban on mail-in voting, trans-targeting law, right?"

The Democratic election lawyer added, "So, when he loses in court in the cases I referenced, and he's not able to pass this law through Congress, as we've discussed, I think he's going to escalate further."

Elias said of the midterms, "It's just gonna be a knife fight from here to the end."

The attorney warned that in November, Trump might send U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to polling places in a blatant effort to intimidate voters. On his "War Room" vodcast earlier this year, MAGA Republican Steve Bannon urged Trump to do exactly that.

Elias told McCormack and Butler, "Let's assume that they're not at the polling place, but rather, they are occupying all the parking lots, and they are closing off the streets.… You're now being told you're going to have to park a mile away and walk to the polls, right? So, don't underestimate the amount of voter suppression they can impose, simply through their chaos and contrived inconvenience."

But the elections lawyer laid out a variety of ways in which Trump opponents can protect the midterms and fight back.

"There are things that lawyers can do which are unique to lawyers," Elias explained. "There are things that elected officials can do that are unique to elected officials. There are things that philanthropy can do that are unique to philanthropy. But everyone — no matter who they are, no matter what their job, no matter how much they have or don't have — they do have a town square that they can stand out in and speak out."

The Democracy Docket founder continued, "Now, some people have really big town squares. You know, they own major media publications. Other people have smaller town squares. It may be just their social media feed, it may be their dinner table, it may be their bridge club or the bowling league they belong to. But everybody's got some place where they can speak out and be heard. And what everyone needs to do is to use that town square to call out what Donald Trump is up to and what is happening to our democracy."

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Trump has reason to worry as warning lights flash in deep-red America

President Donald Trump is now starting to lose ground in deep-red areas of the country that wer once considered to be his stronghold.

Trump's trade war, the Iran war, affordability and a slew of corruption allegations are taking their toll on red America.

The Daily Beast cited a collection of polls showing flashing warning lights for the scrambling Republican Party as the November midterm approaches.

"Even if Democrats are unsuccessful in flipping districts in Trump country, their ability to largely close the gap in deep red parts of the U.S. offers a surge of hope to Democrats praying for a blue wave come November," the report noted.

Internal polling shows positive signs for Democratic Arizona congressional candidate Jonathan Nez, who is in a district that Trump won by 15 points in 2024. Nez is now within striking distance of GOP Rep. Eli Crane.

The National Journal’s Hotline revealed the poll, which shows Crane in a statistical tie with his Democratic challenger. Nez is at 41 percent and Craine at 44 percent. There are nine percent of voters left undecided.

Nez is a re-run campaign, having lost in 2024 by nine points, but Trump is so far underwater in the district that it appears his coattails are pulling Crane down with him. A whopping 56 percent of the district disapproves of the job he's doing.

Arizona isn't the only place. One normally red Republican district in upstate New York, where Trump won by 20 points in 2024, now has Democratic candidate Blake Gendebien one point behind his GOP opponent, Politico reported.

The seat is currently held by GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik, who won in 2024 by a whopping 24 points. Now, GOP candidate Anthony Constantino is close to losing.

In northern Pennsylvania, the 8th district is low-hanging fruit for Democrats. It's another match-up where the Republican, Rep. Rob Bresnahan, is in trouble.

CNN's John King visited the district, where he met a local farmer who said she's seeing more and more people show up at her pro-Democratic Party events.

Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti is currently two points above the GOP congressman. The district was won by Trump in 2024 by eight points. But when Bresnahan won in 2024 it was with about 6,000 votes. It is seen as one of the top ten races in the U.S. that Democrats believe they can flip from red to blue.

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Republican strategist warns Americans should 'fear' lame-duck Trump

As President Donald Trump rages into the lame-duck period of his reign, a prominent Republican campaign strategist is sounding the alarm that Americans should “expect the final two years of Trump’s term to be both frightening and historic.” And by “historic” she means not only the major events that may come to pass, but is nodding to “Mad King George,” whose tyranny the American colonies had to fight a whole revolution to escape.

This is according to GOP campaign strategist Myra Adams, who, writing for the Hill, points out that England’s George III — known as “Mad King George” — spurred on the American Revolution in part by “preventing colonial legislatures from passing laws for the public good. It topped a list of grievances that made up most of the Declaration.”

“This year’s 250th anniversary is marked by revolutionary irony,” notes Adams. “One could argue that President Trump is channeling King George by committing similar ‘usurpations,’ such as impounding money appropriated by Congress and refusing to sign two bipartisan pieces of legislation that serve the public good. First, Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is a key provision that leaders warn jeopardizes national security if not renewed. Second, Trump canceled plans to sign a housing affordability bill addressing the nationwide crisis.”

After defeating the crazed British monarch, the American Founders “established three equal branches of government with checks and guardrails to prevent future elected presidents from usurping power if they exhibit mad-king-like behavior. One notable guardrail is the midterm elections, when the electorate can vote to remove the president’s party from control of Congress. New legislators and senators can then rein in the chief executive by defunding programs, blocking actions, and voicing discontent with unpopular wars initiated by the president… At its most extreme, Congress can remove the president through impeachment by the House and conviction in the Senate. “

After the mid-terms, a twice-elected president enters their “lame duck” phase, in which they can never run for president again. But in the case of Trump, asserts Adams, Americans “can expect him to defy that denigrating label, which embodies his greatest fears: weakness and dwindling power. Now watch the president’s controversial pre-midterm meddling as lame-duck Donald poses a unique set of dangers nationally and globally.”

Trump, with “no filter” and a “messianic mindset,” has already suggested that he will challenge any constraints on his actions. As the Hill previously reported, he has “insisted there are ‘no limits’ to his power … in a new interview about his takeaways from the Iran war.” Trump has also argued that “the one thing” limiting his power is “my own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me.”

Now, warns Adams, he’s bringing that outlook to the midterms and his remaining time in office.

“After the midterms, if Republicans lose control of the House, Senate, or both, Trump, as the face of the Republican Party, is likely to lash out and seek scapegoats,” writes Adams. “We can expect legal challenges to 'rigged' elections and further campaigns of retribution against his enemies. Perhaps Trump will find or manufacture an excuse to deploy the military domestically by declaring martial law, anything to prove he did not lose… Conversely, if Republicans retain full control of the House and Senate, Trump will act on his no-limits-on-power mandate with epic fury.”

However the midterms turn out, says Adams, “Expect the final two years of Trump’s term to be both frightening and historic…I fear for our nation, given that 59 percent of Americans believe ‘Trump is mentally, physically unfit to serve effectively,’ according to a Washington Post/ABC News/Ipsos poll. In late April, a Fox News poll found that among registered voters, 60 percent thought Trump lacked the temperament to be president, 55 percent believed he lacked mental soundness, and 57 percent said he lacked the judgment to be president.”

“Watch how America’s foundation is tested by a lame duck who believes his power has no limits,” she warns in conclusion. “Meanwhile, Trump appears increasingly unstable amid declining health. He commands the world’s strongest military and acts against his ‘subjects,’ like the mad king our Founders rebelled against and designed a government to prevent.”

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'Trump fever is breaking' as GOP privately fears 'administration is dead in the water'

DC insiders, including some in the White House, have begun referring to President Donald Trump’s administration as “Weekend at Bernie’s” due to its shambling, farcical nature. What’s more, it’s become clear that “Trump fever is breaking.”

This is according to Salon White House correspondent Brian Karem, who, based on conversations with wide-ranging figures on Capitol Hill and in the administration, describes a zombie presidency that continues to stagger forward while the chief executive dozes and his aides try to maintain the illusion of normalcy, all while onlookers are aware of the facade.

As Karem explains, Trump’s recent actions have torpedoed the Republican agenda, prompting members of his own congressional caucus to openly view him with “anger and derision.” In the words of one Republican representative, “It’s a f—— s–— show, isn’t it? It’s always about him. That’s his only idea. He’s nuts.”

This, says Karem, is the sign that “Trump fever is breaking.” Not only are top voices in the GOP pushing back against him, but they’re now considering their options for “when the day finally comes that the 80-year-old president is no longer around.”

“Some of us are wondering if it will be sooner than later,” a junior member of Congress said, noting that some “have started to refer to the whole enterprise as ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ — referring to the legendary 1989 comedy in which two aides try to pass off their dead boss as alive.”

While some of the president’s opponents like to raise the specter of impeachment, few in DC think this is likely — at least until after the midterms, depending on how they turn out. Instead, says Karem, “members on both sides of the aisle, and even members of Trump’s staff, are more concerned that the president will roll over like a cockroach and start spouting gibberish (if he hasn’t done that already) or that he simply won’t survive his full term, which still has 940 days to go. In both cases, ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ is the proper analogy. ‘This administration is dead in the water,’ another Republican congressman told me.”

As a result, writes Karem, “Behind the scenes, there’s a lot of scrambling among Republicans that’s starting to look more like panic than strategy.” They’re infighting over who will be Trump’s heir, and frantically attempting to paint Democrats as “communists” following a handful of far-left electoral wins in New York City, “even as they try to keep the ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ routine going.”

But, asserts Karem, “the palace is on fire and the king is asleep — literally. Photos of Trump asleep in public are everywhere and drive home the agonizing ‘Bernie’s’-themed memes being shared among GOP staffers…Trump is increasingly lethargic, unintelligible and addicted to cosplaying commander-in-chief for the cameras. White House reporters, meanwhile, are preparing for the day — perhaps a day when they serve as pool reporter — when they get the call about a calamity befalling the president. That might happen.”

With all this in mind, Karem forecasts, “the ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ regime can’t possibly last much longer.”

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'Stonewalled': Trump hitting a brick wall with his latest obsession

President Donald Trump continues to double down on his voter fraud fixation, repeating the widely debunked claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him and pressuring the U.S. Senate to pass the SAVE America Act as soon as possible — even if it means ditching the Senate filibuster. But according to Axios reporter Brittany Gibson, Trump's voter fraud claims are not serving him or fellow Republicans well.

"President Trump's voter fraud crusade is crashing into the limits of his power ahead of November's midterm elections," Gibson explains in Axios. "Why it matters: Trump has made cracking down on alleged mass voter fraud a priority, but his election-related executive orders are stalled in court and his legislative fix is stuck in the Senate…. Senate Republicans have defied Trump on the SAVE America Act, which would require proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote."

Gibson continues, "Trump has retaliated by threatening not to sign any legislation without it. But Senate Republicans insist they don't have the votes to pass it, even if they tried to gut their own rules in the process."

The Axios reporter emphasizes that resistance to his voter fraud obsession is coming not only from GOP lawmakers, but also, from federal courts that have "stonewalled" him.

"A D.C. court, on Monday, blocked Trump's expansion of the SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) database — to scan local voter files for noncitizens," Gibson reports. "The new database created a centralized list that includes data on U.S. citizens, not just immigrants. Another district court in Boston ruled, on Wednesday, against the implementation of one of Trump's first executive orders demanding a citizenship verification at registration. "

Gibson adds, "The administration is expected to appeal. This could eventually escalate the cases to the Supreme Court, which recently ruled in Trump's favor on immigration policy-related cases."

Trump's "defeats" in court, according to Gibson, "have raised the stakes for passing the SAVE America Act" — which he is describing as a "national emergency."

"Instances of voter fraud are rare, but searching for cases has become a priority for the executive branch," Gibson reports. "ICE agents and attorneys have been querying local election officials for specific voter files for 'ongoing cases.' They've obtained voter files in Webb County in Texas and Forsyth County in North Carolina. The Homeland Security Department installed election integrity activist Heather Honey, best known for questioning elections and voter rolls accuracy in Pennsylvania and Arizona, as a deputy assistant secretary. The Department of Justice is also suing multiple states to gain access to their voter rolls."

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Trump acting untouchable as biggest threat to his presidency looms: DC insider

Axios co-founders Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei have named the GOP's refusal to stand up to President Donald Trump a "crisis."

Writing on Friday, the two asserted that years of blind "obedience" to the MAGA founder has brought the Republican Party to the crisis they find themselves in for 2026. In a way, they've "trained" Trump to believe that his tantrums, threats and erratic demands are not only acceptable but that he will be given what he wants simply to placate him.

"Trump has spent his second term steamrolling his own party, confident the lawmakers he humiliates will keep voting his way," they wrote.

The latest example is Trump's anger over the GOP refusing to eliminate the filibuster to pass Trump's voter restrictions bill. After being told "no," Trump staged a political tantrum and refused to sign the landmark housing affordability bill that both parties came together to craft ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Meanwhile, his own White House was touting the legislation as "one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history.” Even they appeared caught off guard by Trump's mid-morning Truth Social post, deciding to upend one of the few legislative accomplishments Republicans could put their names on to prove they passed legislation to help the affordability crisis.

Then,Trump's Capitol Hill meeting resulted in a fiery Trump attacking GOP "losers" who cast ballots in support of curbing Trump's authority over the Iran war. While the four senators were happy to stand on principle to limit the president, they caved and changed their vote after Trump yelled at them during a GOP lunch.

All the while, Republican lawmakers refuse to stand up collectively to quiet Trump's tantrums. Now it's coming to the detriment of their party in 2026.

An excerpt from the new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan details Trump's glee at Republicans losing elections without his name at the top of the ballot.

"The next month, when Republicans performed badly in the off-year elections, Trump would say he was 'honored' that people were saying that they couldn't win without him on the ballot," says the new book, Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump.

Now the GOP has returned to a place where they must explain to the American people why they should still keep their jobs while spending the last two years refusing to curb Trump's worst impulses.

The Axios reporters cited one long-time Trump ally saying, "The Senate is now behaving like the Senate. More to come. If he loses the Senate, his presidency will be effectively over. Yet he's acting like it doesn't matter."

It's unclear if that was said before or after the four Republican senators caved into Trump, calling them "losers" and changing their votes less than 48 hours ago.

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Ted Cruz may be running for president again —and even CNN thinks it's hilarious

Ted Cruz is probably running for president. It's a headline that is so unsurprising that even CNN found it amusing.

Reporting on Thursday, hosts made it clear that "many of the signs are there" that he's likely to run in 2028, setting up the intra-party battle between Vice President JD Vance and Cruz.

Cruz, who ran in 2016, has spent the subsequent years promoting himself on his own podcast was the butt of the joke for Vance when he was speaking to Megyn Kelly.

"Well, I think committed, non-interventionist, America First Ted Cruz could be a representative for that wing of the party," Vance said.

It isn't shocking after Cruz was caught trashing Vance and President Donald Trump in a secret recording reported in January.

Cruz was infamously referred to by the late Sen. Bob Dole (R-Ks.) as someone "nobody likes." Ironically, Dole also remarked that he thought Donald Trump could likely get legislation passed because he's a "dealmaker."

Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) famously wrote in his book, "I like Ted Cruz more than most of my other colleagues like Ted Cruz. And I hate Ted Cruz."

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) was forced to apologize publicly after he quipped in 2017, "If you killed Ted Cruz on the floor of the Senate, and the trial was in the Senate, nobody would convict you."

Even former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), who didn't even serve in the U.S. Senate with Cruz, said, "I have never worked with a more miserable son of a bitch in my life."

Democracy Docket went so far as to refer to Cruz as the "most hated man in Washington."

CNN reporter Steve Contorno explained on Thursday that Cruz's calendar is peppered with trips to states that have early primaries and caucuses. He's there to help fellow Republicans up for elections in 2026, but they're in states like Iowa and South Carolina.

Bob Vander Plaats, an Iowa Republican and co-chair of Cruz's 2016 campaign, said, "I'd be shocked if he doesn't run" in 2028.

Contorno said he's been watching these candidates because the open question is what Trump will do when it comes to handing over what he considers to be his movement to someone else. In the past, Trump's "deference" has been Vance or Secretary of State Marco Rubio.

Cruz is already setting himself apart from Vance by opposing the Iran War, while Vance has been carrying Trump's water over the war.

Contorno went so far as to call it an "unofficial kickoff to 2028" after Vance published a new book while Cruz was so publicly outspoken against the administration on Iran.

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'They staged the cannibal's banquet — and they were on the menu'

Political consultant and author Stuart Stevens has no sympathy for Republicans who were forced to contend with President Donald Trump, who didn't care much about them during their elections.

In the new book by Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, the authors addressed Trump's having "some satisfaction" seeing Republicans on the ballot lose when he also wasn't running for reelection.

MS NOW host Katy Tur asked Stevens about it, but he couldn't possibly care less about the plight of the GOP.

"Look, I have zero sympathy for these Republicans," he said frankly. "You know, they staged the cannibal's banquet, and in a surprise, they were on the menu. What do you expect from Donald Trump? This is the same erratic, self-centered guy who doesn't care anything about governing."

This week, Republicans are facing off against the president, killing one of their only pieces of legislation to address the affordability crisis.

"I think that we sort of grade on the curve here if we start saying, well, they haven't done everything that Donald Trump wanted to. They are supposed to be a coequal branch of government," Stevents said.

He noted that there's a tendency of the political establishment and pundit class to "both-sides" a Congress that fails to pass legislation. Fewer than 40 bills passed the House and Senate in 2025. It set a modern record for the lowest legislative output in the first year of a new presidency, according to data gathered by C-SPAN and Purdue University.

The legislative session for 2026 is still going, but thus far, it isn't looking great. Most legislation focuses on naming post offices, approving nominees from the president and authorizing veterans hospitals. There have been 186 roll call votes, meaning the members indicated whether they were present in the chamber.

Stevens remarked, "Democrats actually are trying to govern. Republicans, for the most part, are just doing what Donald Trump says, and Donald Trump could not care less about the midterms; he could not care less about them; he could not care less about anything but what is immediately in front of him that his name is going to be on," something or something that "involves getting him richer."

He said it was like that in 2016 and it will be true this time around as well.

"They all kind of try to pretend this is otherwise and ultimately it just doesn't work, because Donald Trump isn't that person that they keep trying to think he might," Stevens closed.

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Exposed: MAGA is buying the 2026 midterm elections

On Thursday, the Washington Post launched a new tool that tracks campaign donations for the November midterms, and what it revealed is stunning. At this point, with just four months until the election, 9 out of 10 of the top megadonors are directly linked to the MAGA movement, and they're out-funding the Democrats by a long shot.

According to the Post, the top 50 individual donors have so far contributed $1.37 billion to campaigns for the upcoming races. $294 million of that has gone to Democratic candidates, $200 million has gone to unaffiliated candidates, and a whopping $875 million has gone into the Republican war chest. As the Post notes, all that cash “could prove critical for the GOP to maintain control of Congress in November.”

The top individual donors are comprised entirely of billionaires and “newly minted trillionaire” Elon Musk, who, along with eight other top GOP donors, are explicitly MAGA-oriented. While Musk was the top Republican donor in the 2024 election, currently that title goes to venture capitalists Ben Horowitz and Marc Andreessen, who have contributed $91.2 million to President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc Super PAC and a pro-cryptocurrency Super PAC called Fairshake.

Other top individual contributors include financiers Jeff and Janine Yass, Miriam Adelson (widow of Trump ally and megadonor businessman Sheldon Adelson), shipping magnates Elizabeth and Richard Uihlein, OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his spouse Anna, hedge fund manager Paul Singer, cryptocurrency investing brothers Comeron and Tyler Winklevoss (who, incidentally, claimed Mark Zuckerberg stole the idea for Facebook from them), and businesswoman Diane Hendricks. Between them all, they most frequently contributed to MAGA Inc as well as the Republican Congressional and Senate Leadership Funds, in addition to donating to groups that promote specific issues like AI, cryptocurrency, and school deregulation.

The Post’s tool also lists the top 10 organizational donors, and here again, Republican and MAGA groups dominate. Six of 10 groups are specifically GOP, a number of which are directly linked to Trump, like Securing American Greatness, Stand Together Chamber of Commerce, and the crypto company Foris Dax. While the top two organizational donors — cryptocurrency companies Coinbase and Ripple Labs — aren’t technically political groups, they are aligned with the Trump family’s crypto business and primarily fund Republican candidates. Of the remaining two donor groups, one is AIPAC, which gives to candidates on both sides of the aisle.

As NPR notes, Republicans “have more money to spend, but they’ll need it.” Part of the reason there has been such a rush to dole out cash on the part of conservative donors involves the major headwinds faced by GOP candidates going into the midterms. Trump’s disastrous war with Iran, abysmal economy, brutal immigration crackdown, and mishandling of the Epstein files have proven so unpopular that many experts predict that the Republicans will lose their majority in the House and maybe even the Senate.

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