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It’s hard to spin the recent avalanche of bad headlines for the G.O.P. To hear top Republicans tell it, this was supposed to be a season of celebration, after Democrats largely capitulated in ending the government shutdown. Yet Democrats won elections up and down the ballot in November, voters are moving in their direction in numerous polls, and there’s no question that the White House’s about-face on the Epstein files was forced by the prospect of a full-on revolt against the president. Behind the scenes, as one source texted me, party members are starting to panic as they stare down next year’s midterms.

House Republicans were already barely holding on to their majority, with Speaker Mike Johnson getting an assist from Donald Trump, who poured much of his political capital into the passage of early legislative wins like the One Big Beautiful Bill. But the Epstein jailbreak evidenced that Republican arms can only be twisted so far. After the resignation of Marjorie Taylor Greene, who will leave Congress in January, Republicans will likely be left with only 218 members, pending the outcome of a special election this December. Meanwhile, as Punchbowl reported today, a sizable number of her colleagues seem to sympathize with her resignation manifesto and are considering their own exit strategies.

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There are other, subtler signs of Trump’s waning influence. One well-wired Republican soothsayer told me to expect fewer members publicly invoking the president, fewer requests to do events with him, and fewer lawmakers making pilgrimages to the White House. Trump, for his part, has demonstrated little interest in flattering members back into the fold, reserving his most stinging vitriol for fellow Republicans Greene and Rep. Thomas Massie while buddying up to Zohran Mamdani in the Oval Office—instantaneously undermining the efforts of everyone from the N.R.S.C. to the online MAGAsphere who had been preparing to turn New York City’s democratic socialist mayor-elect into their 2026 boogeyman.

More cracks in the coalition will likely appear if Trump endorses an extension of Obamacare subsidies, as he is reportedly considering, thus pitting moderate Republicans plus M.T.G.—who worry the G.O.P. will shoulder the blame for A.C.A. price hikes—against conservatives, who were counting on Trump allowing the subsidies to expire. Just last week, House leadership was circulating talking points against the “Unaffordable Care Act.” Now, after forcing Republican leadership to defend the administration’s apparently indefensible position on the Epstein files, the president may leave members with yet more political baggage ahead of the midterms.

November 2026 was already looking to be an uphill battle. Last week, Marist found Democrats with a 14-point generic ballot advantage in the midterms, their biggest such lead since 2017, after which they gained 41 seats in the House. And Republicans are still coming to terms with the sobering results of this month’s elections, in which voters moved toward Democrats up and down the ballot. “Despite all the metrics showing how tough of a slog selling their agenda would be, Republicans remained bullish throughout the year,” a G.O.P. consultant told me. “Election Day 2025 entirely dispelled that sentiment, just in time for members—rookies and veterans alike—to contemplate their futures over the holidays.”

Meanwhile, there’s another storm brewing in rural Tennessee and suburban Nashville, where a special election is set for December 2. In the race to replace now-resigned former Rep. Mark Green, Democrat Aftyn Behn has given Republican nominee Matt Van Epps a run for his money in a district that Trump won by 22 points just a year ago. Democrats, per pre-primary campaign finance reports released last week, have been dumping piles of money into Behn’s campaign, such that she now has more than a two-to-one cash-on-hand advantage over Van Epps. An actual flip here would be a political earthquake on par with Scott Brown taking the late Ted Kennedy’s Massachusetts Senate seat in 2010, and most operatives don’t expect it. But everyone, Republicans included, will be closely watching the margin.

This is in part because of the timing of the race, which is sandwiched between the Thanksgiving and Christmas recesses, when exhausted members contemplate retirement. The closer the margin, the more incumbents will be forced to ponder how much harder they’ll have to work on their reelection bids. If Behn loses by, say, only 12 points, a race in a Trump +10 district might not look so comfy for an incumbent Republican all of a sudden. The spending of outside groups speaks volumes as to how seriously the players take this race: As of Monday, Team Red has spent about $2 million on radio and TV, vs. Team Blue’s $1.7 million, per a Dem source tracking ad buys.

The prospect of a blue wave is among the reasons that a critical mass of House Republicans are considering not just retirement, but resignation, as Punchbowl reported. Another is a growing sense that Congress just doesn’t have that much power anymore, having abrogated so many duties and responsibilities to the White House. There may also be an economic incentive afoot. Ordinarily, a deterrent to stepping down mid-term with this tight a margin is professional blackballing on K Street. But a few Republican sources told me that, as with so much else in the Trump era, the normal dynamics don’t apply. Everyone gets how miserable the Hill is, and bailing early allows a resigning member to get a jump on the one-year cooling off period before ex-members can lobby. One Republican consultant half-jokingly predicted that a would-be Republican ex-member lobbyist might even find a receptive audience with Democratic members—if they’re responsible for handing the speakership to Hakeem Jeffries.

There was one recent bright spot for House Republicans. On Friday, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito temporarily upheld the G.O.P.’s new Texas redistricting map, which could yield as many as five House seats to the Republicans, after a lower-court ruling seemed to throw the map into peril. Republicans I spoke to expect the high court will uphold the new map.

But at least one Texas Republican remained worried, given that the lower-court judge who first threw out the map is a Trump appointee. Moreover, the legal back-and-forth underscores the fragility of any particular redistricting success. If the new Texas map is ultimately struck down, and Democrats’ own revenge redistricting effort in California stands, Republicans could lose the House before a vote is even cast.

Indeed, immediately after the lower court ruling, I received an expletive-laced call from a Texas G.O.P. consultant. This person’s fury was not unique. Of the dozens of conversations I’ve had since Trump’s initial redistricting blitz this summer, I’ve only heard one Hill Republican praise the idea. G.O.P. distaste for the campaign has only grown since, especially after California passed its redistricting referendum. Now, as the generic ballot shifts further in Dems’ favor, the most likely outcome of new Republican maps would be that Democrats lose some seats in Republican-controlled states, while Republican incumbents lose some in Democratic states—in other words, a nine-figure wash.

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