Just a few months ago, Republicans were riding high, giddy after having passed the One Big Beautiful Bill Act into law. But as the saying goes, a few weeks can be an eternity in politics. And as autumn kicks in, it’s clear that cheer is turning into fear. 

Recommended Stories

• Haley Stevens to file articles of impeachment against RFK Jr. 
• Senate leadership touts poll showing Cornyn erasing Paxton's lead in Texas race
• National security dominates race for swing House seat in Michigan

What gives? And what does it mean for the 2026 Senate races? As is usually the case with midterm elections in the Trump era, the answer is: “It’s complicated.”

A big problem facing the GOP as 2026 draws near is that while the tax cuts in the GOP megabill should be popular, the legislation is overall proving to be a political dud with a 64% disapproval rating — hence reports that President Donald Trump is looking to rebrand it as the “Working Families Tax Cut Bill.” Some voters fret about Medicaid cuts hurting the poor. Some worry about the possibly adverse impact on hospitals. Some fear the debt and deficit implications.

Add to this that inflation sits higher than it was at the same point last year and about a percentage point above the Federal Reserve’s target rate, and it’s likely Republican Senate candidates will have to run with some semblance of an inflation anchor next year, just as former Vice President Kamala Harris did last year. Sixty-one percent of those polled by the Economist and YouGov disapprove of Trump on inflation. 

So the picture is grim — and that’s discounting the fact that the party that controls the White House generally tends to do worse in the first midterm election of each presidency. Crazy though it may seem, the GOP could indeed be staring down a situation in which Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) ends up back in charge and gridlock once again becomes the name of the game in Washington, D.C.

You could be forgiven for thinking the toughest Senate seat for Republicans to hold will be that of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). Her state is basically blue, though Trump did win the lone Electoral College vote for its 2nd Congressional District in 2024 and got within 3 points of winning the whole state in 2016. Collins is the last standing Republican in Congress from anywhere in New England. And Republicans, independents, and Democrats all overwhelmingly say she does not deserve to be reelected. 

So why might Collins win? For starters, she’s someone everyone can live with, even if they don’t love her. In addition, Collins is a very skilled political player. Before becoming a politician, Collins was a Senate staffer. It is said among Senate employees that the toughest thing about working for Collins is that she knows how to do your job better than you ever will. She is a GOP megabill-rejecting, pro-choice, didn’t-endorse-Trump, centrist Republican. That makes her the very rarest of political animals and explains why she won her last race by about 9 points. As Maine operative and former Collins staffer Lance Dutson puts it, “Senator Collins has been underestimated over and over again, and she consistently dominates the political landscape in Maine.”

In any event, it’s not clear if Democrats have a viable contender to take Collins out. The Democratic establishment wants Gov. Janet Mills (D-ME) to run, but recently, she actually defended Collins from attacks. Mills is also 77 years old and not particularly popular, with a barely positive net approval rating. She, too, is a career politician, which makes it hard to attack Collins on those exact grounds. 

Some right-of-center Maine politics veterans actually think Bernie Sanders-machine backed Maine oyster farmer Graham Platner — a burly U.S. Army veteran who could not be further from the oft-stereotyped feminized, soy-boy, progressive male Democrat — could be better-suited to take Collins down. Inflation is worse in the Northeast than in the Midwest or the South. Platner’s campaign has an air of John Fetterman about it and thus far has proved both well organized and well oiled. Platner raised $1 million for his campaign in just 10 days. As crazy as it might sound, that could mean trouble for Collins.

Still, Collins’s lot is better than a Republican running in North Carolina will likely be. There, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) has declined to run for reelection, apparently broken by the “big, beautiful bill” process. That leaves a situation in which Democratic former Gov. Roy Cooper — who has never lost a statewide race, including two gubernatorial elections — looks likely to face off against former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley. 

Whatley’s identity virtually guarantees that the race will be a referendum on Trump. On the one hand, this means the Republican should be able to turn out hardcore Trump supporters easily who might otherwise stay home in a midterm election year (no mean feat). On the other hand, convincing anyone who doesn’t like Trump to cast their ballot for Whatley will be tough — and Trump’s approval ratings would likely sag along with any economic downturn (though it is also worth noting that for now, both gas prices and inflation remain lower in North Carolina than elsewhere; heading into 2024, inflation was higher in North Carolina than in many other states).

Whatley and Trump want to make the race about crime — and goodness knows Republicans have drawn attention to the murder of Iryna Zarutska on the Charlotte subway. That could help, but the Trump administration has also brought federal charges against the alleged killer. If one subscribes to the theory that in politics, campaigns want the issue, not the solution, and that elections are about promises, not records, Republicans might have shot themselves in the foot by bringing those charges and delivering up a fix.

Ohio, too, is looking awfully close for comfort from Senate Majority Leader John Thune’s (R-SD) vantage point. While the used-to-be-swing-state has drifted red in the Trump era, the man on the 2026 ballot is an appointed, not elected, senator. As the nation famously saw with then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler in 2020, sometimes such candidates don’t fare well on their first ballot outing. And Loeffler wasn’t running against former Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat widely regarded by Ohio pols from both parties as one of the most gifted campaigners ever. Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) likely will be.

After a humiliating 2024 defeat, Brown is back — probably with a vengeance. He will be helped by bad manufacturing job numbers under Trump (despite the president having pushed a bevy of supposedly Rust Belt-friendly policies), economic sliding, and, yes, the tax law’s unpopularity. There’s a reason that Vice President JD Vance has been on the trail selling the legislation so hard in his home state. Brown is, however, lacking full-scale support from labor in Ohio, with Husted having bagged a couple of important endorsements. It’s still very early, but it’s easy to see how Ohio could go south, fast.

In Texas, the GOP might have a different sort of problem. There, the issue is primary politics, not the general election. Incumbent Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) will face off against Attorney General Ken Paxton in a match that might be best characterized as ethically challenged firebrand vs. milquetoast corporate Republican. Something for everyone to hate. 

As of the time of writing, Cornyn continues to lag behind Paxton in primary polls, but it’s hard to see Paxton, polarizing as he is, performing well in a general election. Remember, it’s not just his near-impeachment or his divorce that may play on voters’ minds. There are also problems such as his apparent hypocrisy on environmental, social, and governance, or ESG, investing, a big issue in a state where both oil and gas concerns and wind energy are big business.

To be fair, Cornyn has some of these same liabilities (he’s criticized ESG investing, too, but his stock portfolio is slanted low carbon). And the fundamental issue both Cornyn and Paxton will face is that Texas has been moving bluer. While Trump won the state handily in 2024, by more than 10 percentage points, in 2020, Texas was actually bluer than Iowa or Ohio, which were treated as swing states just a few years ago. That year, Trump only won the Lone Star State by about 6 points, and since the 2024 election, Latino voters who helped propel Trump to a bigger win there have swung against the president — he is currently 34 points underwater with them. That might not just mean that Texas’s redistricting effort will yield few dividends for House Republicans, though, as former Republican consultant and Latino political demographics expert Mike Madrid has pointed out, “Beto O’Rourke won 3 of the 5 newly drawn districts in 2018 — and the economy was good then.” It could also be a harbinger of big problems for whichever Republican advances to the general — but especially Paxton.

True, Texas Democrats do have a habit of nominating dud candidates (O’Rourke included). But one possible nominee, Rep. James Talarico, raised $1 million in his first 12 hours as a candidate. The bottom line is that Texas in 2026 is more of a headache for the GOP than anyone might have guessed a mere decade ago. 

Iowa may be the rare state where the picture looks brighter now than it did in early summer. Then, the presumption remained that Sen. Joni Ernst (R-IA) would be running for reelection. That was a big worry, not just because Iowa Republicans have always viewed Ernst as rather weak, in state, but also because of her mangled handling of questions about Medicaid cuts in the reconciliation package and, even worse, her calamitous cleanup effort in which she invoked the tooth fairy. Ernst was also always loathed, or at least not trusted, by the conservative base who viewed her as overly fixated on “women’s issues” — and that’s an important demographic within the Iowa GOP.

But Ernst has since decided to retire, and Rep. Ashley Hinson (R-IA) — a young, telegenic figure who already has Trump’s endorsement but isn’t repellent to centrist women and indeed picked off a swing seat a few years ago — has entered the fray. 

Hinson is widely regarded as more talented and a safer bet to win, though she will certainly be attacked for cozying up to Trump in recent years. At the same time, she will probably struggle to turn out Trump fans who only vote in presidential elections. Her vote for the tax megabill will also be attacked harshly, and all this will occur against a backdrop that shows a resurgent Democratic Party in the once-swing state and Republicans on their heels. While GOP insiders caution against reading too much into special elections, the fact is that Democrats did recently thump Republicans in two key races. If Trump continues to push tariffs, which Iowa farmers hate, it will hurt — even though inflation and gas prices are also lower in the Midwest and Iowa, respectively, than elsewhere in the country. 

It’s still not clear, though, that Iowa Democrats have a top-notch contender to offer. But does it matter? Several Iowa GOP insiders ventured that the race will be in single digits. If the economy doesn’t improve, both the Senate race and the gubernatorial race could be toss-ups. That is despite the fact that Democrats might have missed an opening with Sarah Trone Garriott and Jennifer Konfrst locking into a congressional primary against each other. Possible Senate nominees are Rep. Josh Turek (D-IA) or Jackie Norris, Michelle Obama’s former chief of staff. Iowans say Turek makes great sense on paper, but is untested and could flail. Meanwhile, Norris could raise a ton of money, which is important against powerhouse fundraiser Hinson.

CONSERVATIVES FEUD OVER WHAT CHARLIE KIRK WOULD HAVE WANTED 

One thing that makes Iowa especially hard to call: 2026 will be the first time in 60 years that the state has had open seat races for the governorship and the Senate. New GOP candidates are running in the 2nd and 4th districts, and extremely competitive congressional races will play in the 1st and 3rd districts. That makes for big challenges in reading the political entrails, and not much of a blueprint for Republicans to operate from.

The bottom line: Both the House and the Senate are much more on the line, politically, than Republicans will find comfortable, which explains why key administration figures are frequently taking to the road to sell their biggest legislative accomplishment, even in states that look red. If the economy falters or Democrats pull their act together even a little, expect a lot more election drama even in safe states.

Liz Mair is a libertarian Republican political columnist and consultant who lives outside New York City. She is the president of Mair Strategies, a politics and public affairs opposition research and communications firm.