President Donald J. Trump is anticipating an electoral defeat for the Republican Party in the coming midterms, and he is already formulating excuses for why this new reality will occur.
Is it his policies?
President Donald J. Trump tours the White House with Fox News host and daughter-in-law Lara Trump, Thursday, May 28, 2026. (Official White House Photo by Molly Riley)
The unpopular war that he started?
No.
According to the forty-seventh president, the real reason the GOP is set to lose is because of mail-in voting and voter-registration rules.
It’s starting to sound like a grotesque rehash of the 2020 presidential election.
Whatever one’s opinion of the 2020 election outcome, the president lost.
He apparently even told top aides at the time, like Hope Hicks, that he knew he lost.
But he couldn’t just walk away.
And we know the president was already concocting schemes to excuse what was likely a 2020 defeat, early in that contentious election, when he started complaining about mail-in balloting.
Preemptive Excuses
Some examples the president keeps citing in this Midterm cycle include the prolonged counting processes in Detroit, Philadelphia, and California.
According to the president, that prolonged counting process demonstrates that American elections are rigged and, as he put it (in all caps, of course, on his Truth Social page), “CORRUPT.” The president never offered evidence connecting slower ballot counting with fraud.
That hasn’t stopped him before, though.
A recent Newsweek article suggests the president is already building a narrative that excuses his bad decisions as the cause of the impending catastrophic GOP defeat in November.
If that excuse holds in the minds of many stalwart Trump supporters, then the fault will not be Trump or the idiotic war he initiated.
It’d be the GOP’s fault more generally — and the fault of rigged elections.
Of course, when Trump wins, the elections are never rigged. When he loses, the other side cheated.
Reuters found that in 62 competitive House and Senate races, GOP candidates in around 41 are trying to distance themselves from the president and his policies in the general election.
That’s roughly two-thirds of all GOP candidates in contentious House and Senate races.
Most of the disagreements with Trump involve concern that the unpopularity of Trump’s war against Iran could taint their reelection chances.
Right now, the Democrats have a 16-point advantage among independents. The president’s job approval is at an all-time low of around 32 percent.
The Democratic Party’s generic vote is running at 44 percent, while the Republicans have only 37 percent.
Among Hispanic Americans, Trump has a 24 percent approval rating.
As always, people vote with their wallets. Because of high interest rates, along with a very high Treasury yield–paired with hot inflation levels–the economy is struggling.
This is happening as food and energy prices soar because of Trump’s unpopular Iran War.
The president also continues to dismiss most voters’ affordability concerns while insisting the country is in a “golden age” economically under his leadership.
This only makes both Trump and the GOP unpopular with just a few weeks before votes are set to be cast in the Midterms.
Handouts Won’t Be Enough
Trump appears increasingly desperate, too.
Not only is he preemptively making excuses for why he’s not to blame for his party’s impending catastrophic defeat this November, but he’s also spent weeks scheming to entice voters to keep his party in power.
For instance, during a bizarre Midterm Convention in Texas, Trump promised to give Americans $5,000 if they kept the GOP in power.
He has also floated the idea of giving seniors more money.
Now, Trump is suspending the federal gasoline tax because gas and diesel prices are high.
In fact, Trump still has a slight chance of enacting a diesel export ban.
That won’t help the US economy in the long term.
But it might reduce fuel prices enough in the next few weeks to ease some of the fallout for Republicans at the polls. Of course, time is running out to enact such a law.
So far, it does not appear that Trump will do that (because it would negatively impact much of the rest of the world and create blowback for the United States).
Republicans are facing a true disaster this November, if the polling is accurate.
Judging from the way in which many GOP candidates are fighting to avoid being seen with the president, and the fact that Trump himself is developing preemptive excuses for why the GOP will lose, clearly the White House and the GOP know things are very bad.
Look at Their Actions
Forget about whatever the Republicans and Trump are saying publicly. Look at their actions.
These aren’t the actions of a party poised to win.
They’re clear signs that the president and his party are collapsing—and they have no plan to avoid the disaster (other than finger-pointing).
Nothing is a fait accompli in politics. But the betting odds are now clearly in favor of the Democrats going into November, and for good reason.
At this rate, the GOP will lose bigly in a few weeks.
About the Author: Brandon J. Weichert
Brandon J. Weichert is the Senior National Security Editor. He also manages The Weichert Brief on Substack. Weichert also hosts “National Security Talk” on Rumble. He is the author of four bestselling national security books, most recently A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine (Encounter Books). Follow him via Twitter/X @WeTheBrandon.
