All of the polling data, along with where Republicans are campaigning in the final days of the 2026 race, is indicating that the GOP and President Donald Trump are headed toward a bad night. Sure, Trump keeps arguing that everything is fine and dandy but he is a serial liar who says that all the time.
But if even the political Armageddon does come to pass for Republicans and they lose control of the House and the Senate with significant Democratic gains in states where the right once dominated, we are unlikely to see any kind of reckoning on the failures of conservatism and the party that is the main vehicle for American conservatism.
Just look at what happened with Republicans in 2020. Trump’s loss to former President Joe Biden was decisive. Unlike Trump replicating George W. Bush and squeaking into office with an Electoral College victory but losing the popular vote, Biden had a 7 million-plus vote mandate. The country rendered its verdict on Trump’s first term, and in particular his mishandling of the economy and COVID-19, and went a different direction.
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But Republicans didn’t. Not only did they refuse to accept Trump’s loss (and tried to invade the Capitol to prevent his loss being certified), but they then spent the next four years leaning even harder into their extremist ideology.
