IF THE GOP SUFFERS BLOODBATHS IN 2026 AND 2028, REPUBLICANS WILL STILL LIKE THEMSELVES MORE THAN DEMOCRATS DID AFTER 2024

A poll from the right-leaning Trafalgar Group shows Lindsey Graham's sister, Darline Graham Nordone, clinging to a 1-point lead over her Democratic opponent, Dr. Annie Andrews, in the South Carolina Senate race. South Carolina is heavily Republican, so I assume Graham Nordone will win the race, but she appears to be struggling. She leads by only 2.6 in the Real Clear Polling average.

When Democrats struggle in an election, they respond with breast-beating and self-abnegation. They conclude that the country is undergoing a culture-wide "vibe shift" toward Republicans and away from themselves. They wallow in self-hate. They tell themselves that in order to survive as a party, they need to be less Democratic.

That's not how Republicans do things. If Graham Nordone ekes out a win -- or even if she loses -- in a state Trump won by 18 points in 2024, they'll say it's because their candidate wasn't Republican enough, as "Republican" is currently defined. Here's a post from Will Folks, founding editor of FITS News, an influential right-wing politics site based in South Carolina:

Conservative Republicans in South Carolina made it abundantly clear during the 2026 primary election cycle that they didn’t want the sister of fiscally liberal warmonger Lindsey Graham serving as the GOP nominee for U.S. Senate this fall.

Unfortunately, the Palmetto State’s Republican establishment – egged on by U.S. president Donald Trump – refused to listen, and proceeded to launch a multi-million dollar campaign in support of left-of-center “Republican” Darline Graham Nordone.

At the same time, Trump and his SCGOP allies spent millions attacking Nordone’s Freedom Caucus rival, U.S. congressman Ralph Norman – a move that further alienated the state’s growing conservative base.

Now, the consequences of this ongoing alienation are becoming painfully clear for the Palmetto State’s GOP ruling class... and for Trump.

Folks summarizes the Trafalgar poll numbers and writes:

As we noted earlier this week, many Norman supporters plan to write the congressman’s name on their 2026 ballots – a movement that is likely taking at least 1-2% out of the Republican’s right flank. Meanwhile, Nordone has been completely outflanked by Andrews the affordability front.

“This is a perfect storm,” [a] Republican operative unaffiliated with any of the campaigns told us. “A terrible GOP candidate, a divided Republican party, an unpopular president and economic headwinds that an otherwise unelectable Democrat candidate is deftly capitalizing on.”

See? Apart from doing a better job on affordability, the answer is to double down on Republicanism. A Freedom Caucus Republican, Folks insists, would have done much better in this race. The problem couldn't possibly be that the entire Republican Party has effectively rubber-stamped Trump's failed presidency, and has nothing to offer voters when the country seems to be badly off course.

Meanwhile, in Iowa, a Democratic sweep of the top two races (governor and senator) is possible. Steve Deace, a very influential Iowa Republican broadcaster and operative, posted a cry for help on X this past week:

Yesterday, Iowa House Republicans were informed by their own pollsters that if you are in a +15 district you’re within the margin for error, if you’re in a +10 district you’re underwater, and that this might end being an even worse midterm environment than 2006.

... if the environment is this bad in my home state, where Trump has been the most popular political figure over the last decade, I can’t imagine where it is everywhere else.

But as far as Deace is concerned, the Republican approach to governance is still absolutely correct, with one exception (and he's not even sure that's an exception):

Whatever we’re doing or not doing in Iran/Hormuz has become a 2020 Covid lockdown level of political albatross. This is approaching TARP bailout levels of unpopular in my home state. We are risking what’s left of the Trump presidency on this, because if Democrats take control the legislative branch the Trump domestic agenda we all voted for will largely cease between what a Democrat Congress will do and the courts have already been doing. Not to mention what it will cost individual states like my own, which we have worked so hard to make so red these last 20 years (with Trump’s help).

This whatever/kinda/sorta/but not really war has become an existential misuse of political capital. Many of us never thought it was worth it, and more and more it appears voters agree. We have to save our own country and our own way of life first before we can save anyone else. We have to save America before we can save the world. If a plane is endangered, you are told to put on your mask first otherwise you’re of no use to help save anyone else.

After 2024 -- a year when Democrats lost the popular vote in the presidential by a mere one and a half points -- prominent Democrats and left-centrist pundits began to talk as if the party had gotten everything wrong, and as if Republicans were right about many things (cozying up to angry young men, throwing trans people under the bus). Deace thinks Republicans are still the people who will save America -- and could be doing that right now if it weren't for this pesky war.

I desperately want us to win. I desperately want this presidency to fulfill all the great promise it had coming out of the 2024 election. But whatever this currently is, isn’t it.

And maybe the war isn't a problem -- maybe it just isn't being sold correctly! And maybe Republicans aren't demonizing Democrats enough!

We don’t have to just sit here and take the L. It doesn’t have to end this way. We can still win. There’s plenty of ammunition to hammer the Democrats with.

We need the president out on the stump asap. We need better and way more aggressive messaging. Stop running fake and gay ads about how often so-and-so shows up for votes, and instead mercilessly hammer Democrats on the wickedness they’re voting for. Articulate specifically what the mission/victory is in Iran/Hormuz, because out here in the cheap seats it feels like another Middle East War quagmire regular folks are paying for on both ends all over again.

Even if there's a blue tsunami this year, and another one in 2028, Republicans will still have more self-esteem than Democrats had after losing a fairly close race in 2024. They'll blame Trump's political instincts, and a limited number of his bad decisions. They'll never blame their entire approach to politics the way Democrats do.

I think Democrats will have a very good 2026. Will our political culture say there's been a "vibe shift"? I suspect not. Pundits will say the country is anti-Trump, not culturally Democratic. And prominent Democrats will probably agree.

Republicans still think most of the country is culturally Republican, and they'll believe that even after an electoral bloodbath -- maybe even after a second one in 2028. And that self-confidence is likely to be what they build on if Democrats regain control of D.C. and the pendulum swings, as it usually does.