Can the GOP Blow it in 2026?

In 1993, President Clinton tossed away his hard-won centrist image by making gays in the military, abortion, and a big increase in spending (a thumb in the eye to Perot voters) his opening priorities. The following year, in a highly unusual and never-repeated development, Republicans under Newt Gingrich ran on an actual affirmative agenda (The Contract With America) such that voters could not only register a protest vote over the Clintonian bait-and-switch but actually have a positive reason to vote for the opposing party. The 54-seat swing gave the GOP a majority in the House for the first time in over four decades.

Democrats are now openly supporting rioting, urban decay, illegal alien gang members, partisan judicial tyranny, mass illegal immigration, violence against law enforcement, Hamas and Jew-hatred, street crime in general, males taking over women’s sports & bathrooms, and waste, abuse, inefficiency, and open theft in federal spending.

Karl Rove, Lee Atwater, and Richard Nixon would salivate and think it Christmas and birthdays combined to be presented with an electoral target like the current Democratic Party.

But does anything matter? Saner Democrats (Ruy Texeira, Sen. Fetterman, Rahm Emmanuel, David Axelrod, etc.) have warned that the party will get slaughtered if it continues on this path. But is partisanship so baked into the system that change can only happen at the margins? Nixon destroyed McGovern but only gained only 12 seats in the House. Reagan gained 34 and 16, respectively, but like Nixon, never a House majority. Congenital party identity persisted. Is the current 50-50 “divided nation” configuration similarly baked in?

I find it odd that the congressional GOP is not forcing more votes to establish a record for 2026. An enormous advantage of a majority in both houses is that there is control over that which is voted upon. Even if a measure cannot survive a filibuster, the vote itself is an irrefutable position statement that everyone has to run on in the next election.

In addition to the current GOP Congress not having an identity or creating a perception of clear purpose and priorities, the existence of residual Trump-phobia, the long-term effects of a perverted and failed education system, and the effective (if suspect) turnout in deep blue districts, all suggest that the GOP could actually manage to lose the House in 2026 despite what ought to be a spectacularly favorable environment.

The mind boggles.