'Self-created mess': How 2 Trump foes could wrestle 'de facto control of the Senate' from MAGA

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Donald Trump and Melania Trump with Senate Majority Leader John Thune on January 8, 2025 (Wikimedia Commons)

As the 2026 midterms inch closer, a nightmare looms for President Donald Trump in the form a fusion of two of his own party: Sen. Susan Collins(R-Maine) and Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska).

While the two have intermittently emerged as Trump foils, the pair appear poised to further erode the president's agenda if Republican hold on Congress weakens.

"The fight for who will control the House of Representatives after the 2026 election has turned into a national mud war, " writes The Hill. "The Senate is much neater."

And while The Hill muses that "Republicans current 53-47 majority in the Senate may be reduced but probably won’t be eliminated," and Democrats are defending open seats in a slew of states, "Trump’s tariffs and agricultural policies, including immigration restrictions, will be a problem for any Republican nominee."

Enter Sen. Collins, who The Hill says, "Appears headed for reelection largely because 77 year old Democratic Gov. Janet Mills cannot make a decision either to enter the race or punt."

Meanwhile, the race for Texas Republican John Cornyn's seat "has turned into a self-created mess for Republicans," according to The Hill.

While Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has a big lead in the primary polls, he is seen as "a weak Republican nominee."

As a result, "Democratic candidate recruitment success coupled with Republican failure to match them offers the very real prospect that the GOP’s Senate majority will be decreased by at least one, and perhaps two, seats."

If that happens, the GOP's 50th vote would come from Sen. Murkowski, whom Trump tried unsuccessfully to remove by endorsing failed Republican candidate Kelly Tshibaka.

Trump is no fan of Collins, either, slamming her in July 2025, saying, "Republicans, when in doubt, vote the exact opposite of Senator Susan Collins,” Trump said. “Generally speaking, you can’t go wrong.”

"Murkowski-Collins is tag-team nomenclature that political watchers will get in the habit of using. Murkowski-Collins, working as a team, will have de facto control of the Senate," writes The Hill. "In the final two years of President Trump’s term, the Senate may operate as 49-to-49 plus 2."

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