Now for the main event…

It’s been a rough week for Republicans in Washington. Just when they were really feeling their oats—cheering Trump’s executive orders, getting dozens of Democrats to vote for the Laken Riley Act, celebrating Chuck Schumer’s capitulation on government funding, and envisioning beachfront property in Greenland—along came the president with his most distasteful loyalty test yet. Trump’s imposition of global tariffs not only cratered markets, erased trillions of dollars in wealth, freaked out consumers, and angered key allies. It has also made things a bit awkward for Republicans, who now have to explain to their constituents why more expensive products, combined with the plunging value of their retirement accounts, will actually—well, theoretically—be good in the long run. It’s quite a reversal from just three weeks ago, when the leaderless, rudderless Democrats were divided over strategy, pointing fingers at each other, and wallowing in uncertainty. First there was Signalgate, an amateur hour blunder that shifted the media narrative to the administration’s perceived incompetence and put the White House on defense. Then there was the trifecta of two Florida special elections where Republicans significantly underperformed their 2024 margins and a Wisconsin Supreme Court election where Democrats won by an alarming margin, despite (or perhaps because of) Elon Musk’s personal and financial intervention in the race. Now, with Trump’s economic shock to global trade, it’s the Republicans contemplating an electoral wipeout. The midterm shellackings of 2018, when Republicans lost 40 House seats, and in 2010, when Democrats lost 63 seats, are top of mind. The potential to lose one or both chambers in 2026 came up with nearly every Republican I spoke with this week. “Nerves are raw,” said a source who helps to elect House Republicans. “It’s starting to feel a lot like 2018, with a backlash to Trumpism and Trump governance,” said Republican pollster Whit Ayres, who does a lot of work for non-MAGA Republican clients. “The Trump honeymoon collapsed with the stock market.”

Trump himself has always been uniquely impervious to bad press, in part because his popularity trends within such a narrow band. The president may yet reverse course on tariffs (wishful thinking, perhaps…) or at least open the door to mitigating their impact. Nevertheless, there was a sense on Capitol Hill this week that “Liberation Day” and its aftershocks may be remembered as the most significant moment of Trump’s second term—akin to Joe Biden’s bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan, in August 2021, an episode from which his popularity never recovered, as the narrative of a weak and ineffectual president started to take hold. Democrats suffered only modest losses during the 2022 midterms, in part because Afghanistan was a foreign policy blunder that lawmakers didn’t have to defend. House Republicans, however, expect to be asked constantly about the state of Trump’s trade war, and why they signed over authority to the White House to decree the largest tax increase in decades. A source who works closely with House Republicans told me that members are “getting nervous”—particularly those in swing districts with the sort of higher-income, college-educated voters who check their 401(k)s over their morning smoothies and take notice when JPMorgan Chase raises its 2025 recession odds to 60 percent. The party needs markets to settle and strengthen in the next 60 days, I’m told, if lawmakers want to be competitive in 2026. If not, don’t be surprised to see Republicans start to head for the exits, retiring or cashing out to the private sector rather than face a devastating loss. “You can do all you want with trade and the border, but if we don’t have a growing economy next year, we’ll lose the House,” John McLaughlin, one of Trump’s longtime pollsters, told me. Yes, yes, these are easy predictions to make: The party that controls the White House has lost seats in practically every midterm in modern times. But the recent 2018 and 2010 midterms were notable because of how big the swings were. If worsening economic conditions suggest that 2026 is shaping up to be another wave election, expect Republicans to begin speaking up about their disagreements with Trump, seeking daylight they can explain to voters. Most are staying silent, for now, hoping against hope that the tariffs are just a negotiating tactic and will start to be rolled back in coming days. But small pockets of Republicans are starting to express their concerns over tariffs. On his podcast this week, Senator Ted Cruz called Trump’s import taxes “the biggest tax increase we have seen in a long, long, long time.” Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, Mitch McConnell, and Rand Paul joined Democrats this week in voting for a resolution to block Trump’s tariffs on Canada. Seven Republican senators—Collins, Murkowski, McConnell, Jerry Moran, Todd Young, Thom Tillis, and co-sponsor Chuck Grassley have backed a bill that would require Congress to ratify any tariffs after 60 days. They only need six more Republicans to join all Democrats, and the willingness of a Senate leader to bring it up for a vote. Meanwhile, in the House, Rep. Don Bacon—one of the most vulnerable House Republicans every election cycle—is introducing a similar bill to check the president’s powers on tariffs. Notably, just last month, Bacon voted to change House rules to make it more difficult to challenge the president’s use of national emergencies to impose tariffs. The mood in those swing districts is changing fast.

While Republicans test their appetite for dissent—whether it’s on issues like tariffs, deportations without due process, or impeaching federal judges—Democrats will be looking for opportunities to push any wedge issues to the fore. Schumer’s entire strategy at the moment is to chip away at Trump’s approval ratings, thereby forcing Republicans in Congress to either distance themselves from the president or take the electoral hit with their constituents. Trump may not need Schumer’s help with that if the economic situation deteriorates further. It’s incumbent on Democrats, however, to help the process along. Cory Booker, the always hopeful former Stanford tight end, gave Democrats a much-needed psychological boost when he delivered his record-breaking, 25-plus hour speech on the Senate floor. The party also drew optimism from this Saturday’s “Hands Off” protests, which convened hundreds of thousands of people across dozens of cities. In the coming weeks, Democrats will tie Trump’s tariffs to the budget bill as a tax break for billionaires. (Extending the 2017 Trump tax cuts will lower rates for most taxpayers, but benefit the wealthy the most.) In the shadow of Liberation Day, Trump’s allies say it’s become even more crucial to extend the president’s 2017 tax cuts, which expire at the end of the year. But the tariffs could complicate the legislative task at hand by reviving fears of increased inflation and an economic recession. Even worse, some fear that when a version of the tax extension eventually passes, the hoped-for economic boost may fizzle—especially if the market has already priced those lower rates in. “If we pass the tax bill, and we have the uncertainties with tariffs, then you’re not going to get the same immediate response,” Sen. Tillis, who is up for reelection in the purplish state of North Carolina, told me. “The capital is still going to wait on the sidelines to figure out the other side of the ledger.” One unexpected silver lining of the past week, I’m hearing, is that Republicans are breathing easier after all the money Musk spent on the Wisconsin race appeared to backfire. The New York Times, among others, reported this week that Musk is likely to step back from his current role in the White House in the coming weeks, after he completes his 130-day contract as a “special government employee.” But even if he continues to be a major force in Republican politics, making good on his threat to spend millions of dollars on defeating Republicans who don’t fully back Trump’s agenda, his failure to launch in Wisconsin was a reassuring data point for some Republicans. As one G.O.P. source told me, lawmakers who are charting their own political survival odds are relieved that Musk can’t simply parachute into state elections and buy a seat.

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