U.S. President Donald Trump in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., April 29, 2026. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
In recent months, the Republican Party has seen a record high number of retirements from the House along with several from the Senate, while a number of GOP candidates have dropped out of races. They’ve offered all manner of justifications for this, but according to renowned Esquire political columnist Charles P. Pierce, the red wave of drop-outs can be summed up by one simple explanation: they’re afraid of losing.
The latest example came on Wednesday, when former Republican Party of Minnesota Chair and Minnesota Senate Minority Leader David Hann announced that he’s suspending his senatorial race without explaining why. According to Pierce, the reason may be that Hann saw the writing on the wall.
“Absent some baroque personal business as yet undisclosed,” writes Pierce, “there is one reason that a politician is a scratch before the race even starts — it's that the politician believes he might lose. The classic example is Rudy Giuliani's peek-a-boo approach to running against Hillary Clinton for New York’s open Senate seat in 2000. By May, Rudy was out. While it was true that, at the time, his personal life was a mess, and his political skills were in tatters, he didn't run for one simple reason: He didn't want to wake up one Wednesday morning and be the Republican man who lost to Hillary Rodham Clinton.”
And the evidence suggests that Hann and other quitting Republicans may have good reason to have such concerns. President Donald Trump’s approval ratings have hit historic lows, especially in regard to the economy, which voters overwhelmingly declared their top priority in the 2024 election. As a result, Democrats have been overperforming in special elections, and in the past, minority parties that have done so have gone on to win back a House majority in the following midterms. Trump’s performance has been so unpopular that it’s now looking like the GOP majority in the Senate could be at risk, with Democrats giving strong showings in states that were once thought safely red.
Pierce points to another sign that Republicans fear losing. Not only are individual candidates dropping out, but GOP leadership is canceling elections altogether. Following Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision that will allow for the destruction of minority voting districts, Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry suspended House primaries — even though voting had already begun — so Republicans will have a chance to gerrymander the map and spoil the chances of their Democratic opponents.
“This is your democracy, America,” was Pierce’s tongue-in-cheek conclusion. “Cherish it.”