（US President Donald Trump looks on during a swearing in ceremony for new Chairman of the Federal Reserve Kevin Warsh in the East Room of the White House in Washington, DC on May 22, 2026.）
It’s Memorial Day, and the midterm election is less than six months away. As we honor those who have served our nation and made the ultimate sacrifice, we also survey our personal outlook on life and the surrounding landscape of our families; quality of life. That view is looking very clouded and that usually means trouble for those in charge.
President Trump’s ego is endangering the Republican Senate majority.
First, there is the defeat in Louisiana of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) in the May 16 primary. Louisiana is a heavily Republican state, and the seat will stay in Republican hands. But Cassidy, a medical doctor with a cool demeanor, understands our Constitution better than President Trump.
It would be poetic justice if the Senate consortium of Cassidy-Thom Tillis (R-N.C.)-Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska)-Susan Collins (R-Maine)-Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)-Rand Paul (R-Ky.) combined to teach Trump that our constitution matters more than his aggrieved ego.
Trump’s political testosterone was out of control following the Indiana primary, in which six Trump backed challengers defeated incumbent Republican state senators who had refused to go along with Trump’s demand for a round of mid-decade redistricting. Trump’s campaign to defeat Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), which included tens of millions in outside spending, successfully succeeded in Kentucky on May 19. On the same day, Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton over incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn in tomorrow’s Republican primary runoff.
Marco Rubio signs guest book at the Taj Mahal
To call Paxton ethically challenged would be a charitable characterization of his public record. It is going to cost Republicans millions to get Paxton through the November general election, and there is no guarantee of success. And that is money that will not help Republican Senate nominees in Michigan or Ohio. Thus, the Republican hold on the Senate is more tenuous today than it was before Trump’s irrational, score-settling endorsement of Paxton.
I spent 40 years in politics trying to elect Republicans to public office, many of them in Maryland, a tough place for Republicans. Gov. Larry Hogan, State Sen. Addie Eckardt , State Sen. Jean Roesser, Delegate Donna Stifler and Montgomery County Councilman Howie Denis come to mind. All of them were the type of elected officials who understood that they represented their constituents and not some other short-tempered politician.
I worked with a Republican State Party Chairman whose motto was “A good Republican is an elected Republican.” We all understood that you built a political party through inclusion and addition. But that philosophy is anathema to the current White House operation.
And that is exactly the problem. Revenge and made-up litmus tests based on loyalty to one self-centered, egotistically driven individual will not broaden Republican attractiveness to hardworking Americans.
A May 20 AP-NORC survey contains a shocking finding. Twenty-eight percent of Republicans disapprove of how Trump is doing his job as president. Twenty-eight percent! At the same time, the Fox News poll shows 71 percent disapproval of Trump’s handling of the economy. Atlas Intel, which has a well-earned reputation for accurate survey research, found Democrats holding a 15 percent advantage on the generic congressional ballot.
Combined, those findings spell bloodbath.
To prosper, long term Republicans must be a political party built upon principles including smaller government, lower taxes, less spending, individual freedom, individual responsibility and peace through strength. Those principles would exclude Trump as we know him today after five and half years in the Oval Office and far too many social media posts.
Memorial Day is the start of the summer driving season and the annual accompanying increase in gasoline prices. Americans have been enduring skyrocketing gas prices since Feb. 28, when the Iran War and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz began to shrink supply while demand increases.
Yet Trump seems more focused on his legacy, his revenge war and plastering his name on everything in Washington. In the meantime, hardworking American families struggle to balance the grocery bill with the electric bill and tariff-induced price increases on foreign-manufactured products that used to cost less.
These hardworking Americans will never see the inside of Trump’s White House ballroom. But come Nov. 3, they will see the inside of their local polling place. That should make Republican candidates across America dread Election Day.
