Will 2026 Be a Repeat of 2018?
Will Trump lose the House -- again?
In 2018, Republicans got walloped. They lost the House — 41 seats, to be exact — and a good chunk of that had Donald Trump’s name written all over it. His approval ratings were in the low 40s, and independents, the folks who usually decide elections, had seen enough. They broke hard for the Democrats.
Trump’s style — loud, combative, relentless — did what it always does: it fired up his base, sure, but it also energized Democrats like a jolt of Red Bull. The result? Voters decided they wanted a check on Trump’s power, and they handed the gavel to Nancy Pelosi.
Now here we are, staring down 2026, and you can almost hear history clearing its throat, getting ready to repeat itself.
Yes, midterm elections are almost always rough on the president’s party. But 2018 wasn’t just rough. It was a landslide. Because that year, anti-Trump sentiment wasn’t just bubbling —it was boiling.
And now? The pot may be heating up again.
Last Tuesday, Republicans held onto a House seat in Tennessee, but just barely. The GOP candidate, Matt Van Epps, beat Democrat Aftyn Behn by nine points. Not bad, right? Until you remember that Donald Trump carried that same district by 22 points just a year earlier.
Behn, by the way, once called for dissolving the Nashville police department and said on social media that she stood with the 54% of Americans who thought torching a police station was justified. She also declared — this is rich — that she hates country music. In Nashville.
And still, she lost by only nine.
Which brings us — once again — back to Donald Trump.
The latest RealClearPolitics average puts his approval rating at 42.4%. Gallup has him even lower, at 36%. Both are the lowest of his second term. Among Republicans, his support dropped from 91% right after the 2024 election to 84% last month. Among independents, it cratered — from 42% to just 25%.
Let that sink in: one in four independents still approves of Trump. That’s it.
Now, sure, November 2026 is still a political lifetime away. But voters are already whispering something that could soon become a shout: We’re not happy. If the trend continues, Republicans could be headed for another blue wave — and this time, it could wash away not just the House majority, but control of the Senate too.
And here’s the kicker: it’s not just about Trump’s personality or his social media antics. It’s the economy — still.
James Carville said it three decades ago: “It’s the economy, stupid.” And that’s as true today as it was in 1992.
Trump is out there saying the economy is humming. Biden said the same thing before him. But voters didn’t buy it then, and they’re not buying it now. Why? Because it’s not GDP numbers that matter. It’s affordability.
That word — affordability — is going to be everywhere over the next eleven months. Because people aren’t just watching prices on the TV news. They’re living them. At the gas pump. At the grocery store. When they pay rent or take out a loan.
But Trump recently dismissed affordability concerns as a Democratic “con job.” He said it “doesn’t mean anything to anybody.”
Really?
Tell that to a parent juggling bills, a retiree watching her fixed income shrink, or a young couple trying to buy a first home. Voters remember Trump’s campaign promise to bring prices down. And while some things are a little cheaper now, most folks still feel the squeeze. Walk through any supermarket and you’ll see what I mean. Sticker shock is real.
Karl Rove, writing in the Wall Street Journal, put it plainly: the GOP may have “avoided disaster” in Tennessee, but the result should be a wake-up call for Republicans.
He’s right.
The question is: will anyone in the GOP actually pick up the phone?
Because if Republicans don’t wake up — and fast — they’re going to find out the hard way what happens when you keep rerunning the same movie and expecting a different ending. To lose in 2026, all they have to do is nothing. And right now, that’s pretty much what they’re doing.
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