Republicans are losing (bad) at the voting booth. Trump keeps losing in court and losing in job performance polls. He’s even losing with some of his MAGA die hards. So what’s going on? If this is winning do you think he’s sick of it yet?
Losing in the Courts
In February the Supreme Court dropped a bombshell 6-3 ruling striking down the sweeping tariffs Trump imposed using the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA). They said Congress has the power of taxation, not the executive branch, making it clear why Trump has insisted his tariffs are not taxes.
This ruling also constrains the President’s use of emergency economic laws to implement policy. Trump has claimed that the US trade imbalance is a national emergency. An April 5, 2026 article in the LA Times said it best: “President Trump spent much of last week railing against the courts. The courts, in turn, spent it ruling against him.” Trump lost court cases dealing with immigration, birthright citizenship, defying judicial orders and the White House ballroom (US District judge ordered a halt to construction). Perhaps the most damaging case is from the court of US District Judge Amit Mehta who ruled that Trump’s speech at the Oval on June 6 was a political act, not a presidential one, making the immunity rules established by the Supreme Court not applicable. This means he is personally liable for civil penalties in a lawsuit tied to Jan 6. Stay tuned on this one.
Election Loses and the ‘Retirement Caucus’
The election troubles for Republicans that began in November 2025 keep coming as a Democrats pick up seats in races across the country. Since Jan 2025, Democrats have won close to 85% of special elections, including districts Trump won by double digit margins in 2024, according to Politico.
More and more Republican incumbents are either resigning or have decided to retire in states across the country including Georgia, Wisconsin, North Carolina and Iowa. The biggest reason seems to be that voters have had enough of Trump.
In Congress 36 House Republicans are joining the “retirement caucus”, compared with 24 Democrats. In the Senate, 7 Republicans versus 4 Democrats have announced retirement. More than simply being out-performed at the polls by Democrats, more Republicans are voting for Democratic candidates.
(Dis)Approval Rating Continues
Trump’s approval ratings are about 38% with disapproval hovering around 60%. The reasons given are numerous including: the economy, the Iran war, international relations, tariffs, federal job cuts, immigration, education and his administration’s handling of the Epstein files controversy. And surly his fight with the Pope and depiction as Jesus on social media didn’t help either.
Trump is starting to lose with MAGA
As S.E. Cupp reports in the Fulcrum, “… we’re starting to see one-time loyalists do something the MAGA base has never really done before: Question him.” Supporters are starting to question Trump, about his policies, from his decision to start a war with Iran to his tariffs that the Supreme Court just ruled illegal. They’re questioning his morality from the Epstein files and particularly, his attempts to cover them up.
They’re even questioning his sanity and competence, as Cupp puts it, from “…deranged threats to end Iranian civilization and his bonkers attacks on the American pope and Catholics writ large, folks like Tucker Carlson, Megyn Kelly and Marjorie Taylor Greene are openly questioning his mental acuity and fitness for office. They didn’t do this during his impeachments, after his 34 convictions for fraud, or when his deportation goon squad killed two American protesters.”
Orban Loses in Hungary
In Hungary’s recent parliamentary election, Peter Magyar won 2/3 of the seats in parliament – a supermajority – enabling his Tisza party to make changes to Hungary’s constitution and undo the effects of the Orban regime’s 16 years in power. One impact of this is that Hungary will now support the EU, and more specifically, EU’s loans for Ukraine (which Orban has been blocking for years). Another impact is that Putin loses an ally in the EU. This is a big loss for Trump who has used Orban’s success as a template for his own campaign to destroy our democracy.
Perhaps the biggest takeaway is this powerful example of people standing up for their democracy and ousting a long-time authoritarian regime. Hungary’s democracy is called “competitive authoritarianism” in which voters are able to vote for whomever they want. However, the system is structured to heavily favor Orban’s Fidesz party with extremely gerrymandered districts plus a highly disproportionate election system where winning parties can receive many more legislative seats than the percentage of votes they capture.
Orban also has control of 80+ percent of the media and had filled the judicial system with sympathizers. Experts on Hungarian election law have estimated that the opposition would need to win by roughly 10-15% in order overcome this structural disadvantage. But that’s just what Magyar has done, achieving a 55% to 37% electoral victory, with the help of an 80+% voter turnout.
Is this a harbinger of things to come in the 2026 midterms? Will the Republicans get rolled as many are predicting? The numbers don’t look good for them to keep control of Congress. When Trump said on the campaign trail in 2016 “We’re going to win so much you’re going to get sick of winning” no one pictured the state of affairs this administration has created.