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Republicans Worry Iran May Cost Them The Mid-Terms

This morning the so-called cease fire in Iran is on the brink of collapsing, the Strait of Hormuz is closed and oil prices have crept up $20/barrel from yesterday's low.  Meanwhile, high diesel and jet fuel prices are driving up many consumer prices to further exacerbate voters' displeasure with the Felon's handling of the economy.  Affordability has been a winning issue for Democrats and as things stand, the Iran war and high gasoline are only making matters worse for Republicans. True, some in the GOP insist on wearing rose tinted glasses, but others believe the Felon's war of choice will take them to defeat come the November elections. Indeed, some believe Republicans may lose control of the Texas statehouse, a new poll shows a majority of Americans want Congress to impeach the Felon, and it has now come out that the Pentagon threatened Pope Leo because he spoke out against the Felon's horrible treatment of undocumented immigrants.  A piece at Politico looks at where the GOP finds itself thanks to the Felon's policies and the war against Iran.  Should the cease fire fall apart and oil prices soar again, the situation will only be that much worse. Here are highlights:  

Republicans are relieved over Trump’s steps toward reconciliation in Iran — but they worry the measures are too little, too late to save them from a brutal midterm election cycle.

Behind the public celebration by many Republicans of the temporary two-week ceasefire announcement, longtime party operatives continue to warn of a bleak political reality as the cost-of-living concerns around the war including spiking gas prices that are likely to continue for weeks if not longer even if the fragile ceasefire holds.

A person close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak candidly, put it bluntly. “This war in Iran almost cements the fact that we lose the midterms in November — the Senate and House,” the person said.

The concerns are compounded by Republicans’ underperformances in a spate of recent elections, fueling fears that voters, concerned about pocketbook issues, are eager for change. The war, even if it ends now, will likely have lingering effects on gas and other commodity prices that Republicans will be forced to defend on the trail, as much as they might try to talk about tax cuts or border security.

“We will not turn on the proverbial dime to right this course,” said Barrett Marson, a longtime GOP strategist in Arizona. “Time is not on the president’s side when it comes to the November election.”

Trump and his top advisers have spent much of the last few months arguing that the country was on the verge of an economic turnaround — one that would become evident as policies from the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill started to fully take effect.

Instead, the Iran war has put the president and his allies on the defensive, overshadowing their economic messaging while worsening many voters’ actual economic realities. Iran has used the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of global oil flows, as leverage over the U.S. in the war, sending gas prices spiking across the country.

Republicans’ more dismal outlook also comes as the party has continued to underperform Trump by wide margins in all manner of elections.

On Tuesday, that trend accelerated. Georgia Democrat Shawn Harris lost a special election for Marjorie Taylor Greene’s old House seat by 12 points, but he slashed into Trump’s massive 37 point win in the district in 2024. And in Wisconsin, the Democratic-aligned state Supreme Court nominee won in a blowout, and did so by carrying GOP strongholds in the state.

Democrats have continued to hammer Trump for the war, and they’ve seized on the high gas prices it’s caused to elevate what was already their core campaign focus: affordability. Polling from the Democratic firm Navigator Research released Wednesday found that 65 percent of voters do not agree with how Trump is handling gas prices, which have jumped to over $4 per gallon on average; while 71 percent believed the war in Iran led to the increased prices.

Republicans acknowledge that Democrats’ affordability argument is landing. One Georgia Republican strategist pointed to the fact that the war — which has also split the MAGA base over foreign intervention broadly — “is also an affordability issue.” “Trump’s going to own that,” said the strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly.

“I don’t think any Georgia Republican who understands the Georgia general electorate would want Trump coming here,” they said. “Particularly if [Trump’s favorability is] in the high 30s or mid 30s, if he’s in the mid 30s it’d be a fucking blood bath. Holy fuck.”

Still, some GOP strategists are optimistic that the president has time to turn the economy — and their election prospects — around. After Trump’s Tuesday night announcement, U.S. oil fell to about $94 dollars a barrel, down from a high of nearly $113, but still far higher than pre-war levels.

Another Georgia Republican operative said the midterms were always going to be tough even before Iran. The special election results have “only confirmed what Republicans already know, and that is we’re going to have to fight more than we’ve ever fought before.”

“I do think my Democratic friends and colleagues are probably reading too much into this,” they said. Plus, they added, “We lost special elections before we invaded Iran, right? So it’s just really hard to tell.”

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Democrats Make Big Gains in Key Battlegrounds

To everyone's short term relief the Felon - in another TACO episode - agreed to a two week cease fire with Iran shortly before his own announced deadline was to expire.  Where this ill-thought through war goes next is anyone's guess given that the Iranian regime is perhaps more extreme than the one before the war and the Felon's regime is demanding things that Iran would likely never accept.  Again, it's obvious that the Felon launched his war of choice with no real plan and most certainly no exit strategy. Even if the Strait of Hormuz is temporarily open during the cease fire,  Iran can easily close it again and the Felon may be right back where he found himself when he threated war crimes against Iranian civilians.  Meanwhile on the home front, several special elections yesterday showed Democrats significantly over performing (including expanding the liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court) and sending a message that ought to have Republicans worried about the 2026 mid-terms despite their attempts at naysaying.  Yes, the Republican won the seat formerly held by Marjorie Taylor Green, but the margin of the Republican win was only one-third of the Felon's margin in 2024.  A piece at Politico looks at yesterday's election results:

Democrats just had one of their best election nights since [the Felon] President Donald Trump returned to the White House. Again.

In Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election, the Democratic-backed candidate sailed to a nearly 20-point landslide victory Tuesday in a battleground Trump carried less than two years ago. Meanwhile, a Georgia Democrat slashed Trump’s margin of victory by two thirds in the state’s reddest district despite losing the election — the most significant overperformance the party has seen across all seven House special elections so far this cycle.

The results in the battleground states — home to key Senate, gubernatorial and House races — are the latest repudiation from voters of Trump and his agenda and flashing warning signs for the GOP heading into November.

“It’s a wow moment in Wisconsin politics,” said former Republican strategist Brandon Scholz, who left the party in 2021. “Republicans ought to be sitting down tonight and going, ‘Okay, we just screwed up another race. What are we going to do in November?’”

Chris Taylor, a liberal Wisconsin judge, led by 20 points with 90 percent of votes counted — nearly double the already-large margin another liberal candidate won by in 2025 — and she did it by making cuts into GOP strongholds.

In Georgia, Democrat Shawn Harris lost to Republican Clay Fuller, but the margin was only 12 points with nearly all votes counted, roughly one-third the 37-point margin Trump won by in 2024.

While Tuesday’s results are not a perfect parallel to November, the consistent Democratic overperformances in races large and small since Trump returned to the White House suggest the base is motivated to turn out for all manner of contests.

Democrats were elated with the results.  “Election after election continues to show what we have been saying over the last year and a half,” said CJ Warnke, the spokesperson for House Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC aligned with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. “Americans are fed up with broken promises on no new wars and lower prices on day one from Trump and Republicans.”

Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said on X that Harris’ overperformance was evidence that “enthusiasm for Democrats is growing everywhere.”

There were other signs of Democratic momentum, too: Taylor was leading in Ozaukee County, one of Wisconsin’s most reliably red areas. Her strong performance statewide also helped down ballot, where a Democrat won the Waukesha mayoral contest, which was open after an independent — who left the GOP and endorsed Kamala Harris in 2024 — opted not to run for reelection.

Heather Williams, who leads Democrats’ legislative-focused campaign arm, called Taylor’s win in Wisconsin a “decisive victory” that “marks changing tides.”

Many Republicans were quick to dismiss the results in both contests. . . . One longtime Wisconsin Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly, cast the blame on Maria Lazar, the GOP-backed state Supreme Court candidate who was massively outspent in the race.

Republicans in Georgia similarly said the margins in their state’s special election were nothing to worry about, pointing to Harris’ strong fundraising and name ID in the district after running against former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in 2024.

 

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The Felon Lashes Out As He Becomes More Desperate

This morning the price of oil is hovering around $114/barrel, the Strait of Hormuz remains closed to non-Iranian shipping, and the regime in Tehran shows no signs that it is willing to capitulate despite the Felon's threats to commit war crimes against Iranian civilians. Frustrated that his war of choice is hitting a stalemate of sorts and has disturbed oil markets - just as predicted by those the Felon chose to ignore - the Felon seemingly has painted himself into a corner.  High oil and gasoline prices (perhaps for an extended period) are a disturbing prospect for the Republican Party as the 2026 mid-term elections approach, particularly given the unpopularity of the Iran war and the Felon's desire to vastly increase military spending while slashing programs that aid millions of Americans including many in the MAGA base who decry "socialism" but rely on government programs to survive. More and more the reality is that America has a elderly malignant narcissist in the White House  who is showing increasing signs of dementia and a willingness to harm Iranian civilians while sinking in popularity on the home front. A piece in The Atlantic looks at the unhinged situation we now face. Here are excerpts:

In an earlier, somewhat more innocent era of Donald Trump’s social-media posting, one could still chuckle darkly at his 2017 declaration that his approach “is not Presidential - it’s MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL.” But as the war in Iran bogs down, his communication has far surpassed the merely bizarre and become entirely unhinged. When Trump feels cornered, I have written, he lashes out most fiercely—which might explain the wild statements and actions emanating from the White House over the past few days.

The nadir (for now) was an Easter-morning Truth Social missive in which Trump threatened that “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell - JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah.”

Trump reiterated the threat during a press conference this afternoon, saying, “The entire country could be taken out in one night, and that night might be tomorrow night.” Targeting civilian infrastructure such as power plants and bridges is likely illegal. Trump would not be the first U.S. president to flout international law, but he would be the first to advertise it ahead of time on a social-media site he owns. The threat is also strategically dubious. Installing a more pro-American regime in Tehran would require the existence of some authority that is both able to govern and willing to work with Washington; these sorts of strikes, or even threats, make that less likely.

Topping that post will be hard, but this morning the president tried. In a vague and threatening new post, he shared a short clip of a crowd of shoppers—most of whom were people of color, some of whom wore hijab. They were minding their own business and indulging in the quintessentially modern, capitalist American pastime of hanging out at what appears to be Minnesota’s Mall of America, soundtracked with Gary Jules’s rendition of “Mad World” from the Donnie Darko soundtrack.

These outbursts come as the administration finds that military might alone is not enough to win a war. Trump is now threatening to attack civilian infrastructure, because nothing else has forced the Iranian government to buckle. At the start of the war, he seemed to be feeling smug, emboldened by his quick success in Venezuela, but any sense of joy has evaporated fast. Last week, the president delivered a White House address in which he could have attempted to either deescalate the war or else define what victory would look like. Instead, as my colleague Tom Nichols wrote, Trump did neither.

American wars in the Middle East have backfired before, but the negative effects of this one have become apparent at record speed. American and Israeli strikes have killed many top Iranian figures, but the regime remains ensconced—and its control of the Strait of Hormuz suggests that Iran may actually be in a strategically stronger position than at the start of the war. . . . . The U.S. military is burning through ammunition reserves. The likely next step, Thomas Wright argued in The Atlantic last week, is a ground war.

A frantic search for an airman shot down in an F-15E inside Iran ended happily yesterday, with a rescue. But the operation resulted in the destruction of two MC-130J transport planes and some MH-6 helicopters, in addition to an A-10 shot down separately—an expensive tab, especially given that the Trump administration claimed to have destroyed Iran’s air defenses.

These setbacks might have instilled humility in other presidents, but they have instead led Trump to lash out. His frustration may even be leading him to imagine things. Last month, he claimed that a former president had privately expressed regret about not striking Iran. This seems unlikely. . . . This makes Trump’s claim reminiscent of a different former president: Richard Nixon, who had paranoid conversations with portraits on the White House walls as his presidency collapsed.

The frenzy is seeping into other areas of the administration too. Embattled Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth fired the Army chief of staff and top chaplain (among others) in the midst of an active war. Trump fired Attorney General Pam Bondi last week, just after attending a Supreme Court argument in which justices whom he appointed expressed skepticism about the outré claims that Bondi’s Justice Department lawyers were forced to make in defense of Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship.

The president’s behavior usually calms down slightly when he no longer feels cornered. Predicting when that might happen is challenging. Trump has shown he has no good answer for exiting the conflict with Iran, and even if he does, he may find—with apologies to Trotsky—that although he may no longer be interested in war, war remains interested in him. The American and global economies appear shaky. Each week brings new polling that suggests a poor result for Republicans in the midterm elections. Trump may be in for a long stretch in the corner, which means a rough ride for everyone else.

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