U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., November 17, 2025. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
President Donald Trump’s antics are hurting Republicans as they head into the 2026 midterm elections… but they are not sure they can stop him.
“The Iran war is a case in point,” reported CNN’s Aaron Blake on Tuesday. “Trump launched it without bothering to build a consistent case for it to the American people. The objectives have regularly shifted, and Trump seems unfamiliar with basic details.”
Blake added, “He has threatened Iran with apparent war crimes and even warned last week that ‘a whole civilization will die tonight’ — before averting that course.”
Between launching an unpopular war against Iran, threatening war against Denmark, posting an AI-generated image of himself as Jesus Christ and feuding with the popular American-born pope, Leo XIV, Trump is overall making it very difficult for Republicans to defend the party brand.
“The most recent events have led even some former Trump allies — like ex-Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, Candace Owens and Alex Jones, as well as first Trump administration employees Ty Cobb and Stephanie Grisham — to warn that the president is crazy or insane. Some of them and others on the right have even floated the unlikely solution of removing Trump from office using the 25th Amendment,” Blake wrote. “A majority of Americans seems to notice his behavior too. A recent poll from Reuters and Ipsos showed 61% — and even 3 in 10 Republicans — agreed that Trump has ‘become erratic with age.’”
Blake added, “Other polls suggest rising concerns about Trump’s mental acuity," similar to doubt over former President Joe Biden a couple years ago.
Compounding Trump’s preexisting problems, he is also cutting popular social programs that provide health care and food as well as cracking down on immigration in ways even many conservatives regard as brutal.
“His poll numbers are hitting new lows, in some cases even worse than after January 6. He’s alienated a large swath of 2024 Trump voters,” Blake wrote. “And Democrats are over-performing in special elections, like the one for Greene’s old seat last week, by larger margins than ever in the Trump era.”
The CNN journalist is not alone in noting that Trump is acting like a man who does not care if his actions hurt his party in the upcoming midterm elections. Writing for Politico last month, journalists Alex Gangitano, Eli Stokols and Megan Messerly wrote that “fourteen months into a second term defined by the president's heightened ambition and a dearth of dissenting voices, Trump remains in what can only be defined as YOLO mode. But the lack of restraint from an executive who won't have to face voters again has put his party in danger of losing the House and possibly the Senate too."
And the president may be aware of the damage he's doing, and looking to neutralize it. Conservative historian Robert Kagan, who has written extensively about American foreign policy, warned CNN’s Christiane Amanpour in February that Trump is likely to try to meddle in the midterm elections and thereby taking America “one big step into dictatorship.”
“I am worried, as I have said and others have been pointing out, about whether we will even have free and fair elections in 2026, let alone in 2028,” Kagan told Amanpour. “I think Trump has a plan to disrupt those elections, and I don't think he's willing to allow Democrats to take control of one or both houses as could happen in a free election.”
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