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The winter doldrums have arrived for Republicans on Capitol Hill. It’s not just the party’s losses up and down the ballot this past month—which intensified last night when Republican Matt Van Epps notched a mere nine-point victory in the Tennessee congressional district that Trump previously won by 22 points. There’s also a growing sense that leadership isn’t grappling with the likelihood of a Democratic wave in the midterms, which would relegate House Republicans to the minority. Indeed, after reopening the government last month, lawmakers have no significant legislation on the docket to debate before the end of the year. Now the finger-pointing stage of the political cycle has begun.

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Of course, few are willing to blame Trump or his unfavorables, but they’ve identified other scapegoats. Many are frustrated with the White House policy team, which has failed to articulate a clear rejoinder to Democratic attacks over the surging cost of healthcare—a potent issue with voters who are already frustrated with the high cost of gas, groceries, and everything else. Others have beef with Speaker Mike Johnson, whom they view as a puppet doing whatever the White House wants while neglecting the important task of member management, fueling a wave of retirements and resignations.

The blame game is inching closer to the president, as well. One sore subject among Republicans is James Blair, the aggressive White House deputy chief of staff, whose push for congressional redistricting continues to cause “huge unrest” among members, according to an operative who works with House Republicans. Half a dozen Republican sources confirmed that Trump’s mid-decade gerrymander efforts have exasperated Republicans from both swing districts and safe seats.

It was Blair, of course, who’d hatched the plan to try to pick up more than a dozen seats before a single vote had been cast by fiddling with congressional maps in Texas, Indiana, North Carolina, Kansas, Nebraska, Florida, and Missouri. So far, the Texas, Missouri, and North Carolina legislatures have passed new maps, but Texas and Missouri face court challenges. Meanwhile, the party has spent millions of dollars on the effort—money that could have been spent on ground game and traditional campaign elbow grease—while galvanizing Democrats. In the end, the party may very well end up losing seats and angering voters along the way.

Kansas and Nebraska have so far declined to carve out a new Republican seat, and the Indiana Senate has yet to agree to new maps to pick up two Republican seats, despite intense pressure—public and private—from Trump, J.D. Vance, and the White House team. Florida is expected to move forward, which could help Republicans. But Democrats are on track to gain five seats in California, pending a court decision, plus one seat in Utah and as many as three seats in Virginia if the commonwealth moves forward.

Some Republicans are wondering if all this was worth it. “There are a lot of unhappy members,” said an operative who works to elect House Republicans. Among the particularly peeved are those Republicans likely to lose their seats in Democratic counter-districting efforts, members occupying formerly deep red seats who now have to work harder for reelection, and members whose district lines have changed, forcing them to spend money on introducing themselves to new voters.

Blair’s defenders characterize the redistricting efforts as a necessary response to Democrats’ yearslong efforts to sue states over their congressional maps—with ongoing litigation in eight states, including Utah, Louisiana, Florida, and North Carolina, as of earlier this year. (Utah picked up a Democratic seat and North Carolina picked up a Republican seat.) “It’s a simple question: Do you sit back and let the Democrats sue to blue, or do you go on offense and try to do something about it?” said Adam Kincaid, the president of the National Republican Redistricting Trust. Blair chose offense.

Even from the outset, House Republicans have been skeptical. But as G.O.P. redistricting efforts hit roadblock after roadblock, their anxiety has only grown more pronounced. Trump himself was furious that he was outmaneuvered by Gavin Newsom in California. But a White House official decried the Republican bed-wetting. “Waving a white flag a year before the midterms is insane,” the official said. “If the president did that, he wouldn’t be the president. As he says, never give in, never give up. Never, never, never.”

But Republican anger on the Hill goes beyond redistricting. In a Congress that moves at the direction of the White House, mixed signals from the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue on critical issues for voters—namely, cost of living and healthcare—have prevented lawmakers from building consensus around any particular affordability agenda. And it’s not just the White House policy team, which Blair oversees: Some Republicans are also frustrated with James Braid, the gruff former Hill staffer who has to liaise between a mercurial president and pearl-clutching members—sometimes without even knowing what the president is up to. One person familiar with the interactions told me that Braid’s congressional affairs team hadn’t been informed of Trump’s tariffs on beef before they started getting angry phone calls from the Hill about the major policy shift. Of course, Braid and Blair have congressional allies, too. “We talk to them every day, pretty much night and day,” one senior House Republican lawmaker told me. “And I’m in leadership meetings, and they’ve been very responsive.” A senior leadership aide added: “James Blair has been instrumental in every accomplishment we’ve delivered so far. … There’s been no better partner with House leadership.”

Members also put the onus squarely on Johnson, the ostensible leader of the House. On Tuesday, frustrations boiled over during a closed-door conference meeting as Republicans debated issues including affordability (why aren’t they talking about it more?), healthcare (what’s the plan?), and redistricting. Johnson defended the redistricting blitz, I’m told, insisting that Republicans are currently in “positive territory,” even as vocal Republicans, including some members of the Texas delegation, railed about the whole situation. Some of those present felt the speaker ignored the reality of the stakes.

Meanwhile, Republicans still lack a coherent plan for addressing healthcare. “People who just came in, or have been in for a couple years, are frustrated that we haven’t just wrapped our arms around basically fixing Obamacare overnight,” the senior House Republican told me. “We’re going to have to work hard.” But they’ve barely been at work: Johnson also angered members by imposing seven weeks of Washington exile during the shutdown, preventing members from making progress on individual appropriations bills or… talking about healthcare.

There are further signs that Johnson’s loose grip on his conference is continuing to slip. A bill governing college sports stalled this week when members of his own party—namely Rep. Chip Roy—objected to it. Rep. Elise Stefanik called Johnson a liar and a defender of the “deep state” when one of her provisions was stripped from the annual defense policy bill. (After the public shaming, she posted that it will now be reinstated.) She holds Johnson largely responsible for torpedoing her nomination to be U.N. ambassador, and for failing to address the New York and California Republicans’ demands for a higher state and local tax deduction as part of the One Big Beautiful Bill. (It was Blair who got the enhanced SALT deduction into the bill.)

In perhaps the most obvious sign of their discontent, Republicans are continuing to file discharge petitions, the legislative technique increasingly used to circumvent the speaker. (Typically, discharge petitions are filed by members of the minority, not the party in power.) Yesterday, Florida Republican Rep. Anna Paulina Luna filed a discharge petition on a stock-trading ban for members of Congress—the third Republican petition in just the first year of this Congress, including the one that forced the release of the Epstein files. In a bid of defiance, Stefanik, a member of Johnson’s leadership team, signed it. And I’m told that other discharge petitions are in the works—a clear representation of how little faith Republicans have in the speaker. 

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