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'Dire predicament': Republicans reeling as MAGA base throws a wrench into election gears

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (Reuters)
Matthew Chapman
December 03, 2025

Republicans got a massive scare on Tuesday night as a special election for a heavily gerrymandered Tennessee district President Donald Trump carried by 22 points was decided by single digits. But this result, the latest in a long string of Democratic overperformances in elections this year, shows a broader "dire predicament" facing Republicans going into the midterms, wrote Paul Kane for The Washington Post on Wednesday.

Specifically, he argued it shows that the MAGA base is "losing faith" in the movement, at the same time that independent voters are breaking away from the GOP in huge numbers.

"Republicans had to spend several million dollars to retain the seat, by about 9 percentage points, after both Trump and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R) won the district by 22 percentage points last year," wrote Kane. And while this win "gives a temporary boost to House Republicans in need of every vote possible to pass anything with their historically small majority ... it sent a warning shot to several dozen lawmakers from seats that the party presumed were completely safe heading into the November midterms."

The newest data, Kane noted in a separate post to X, shows Republican voters have only 23 percent approval of Congress, despite controlling the entire body.

This is leading House lawmakers to scramble for help on issues they know they're losing on, Kane wrote.

"Rank-and-file Republicans are pushing leadership for help on issues from health care subsidies to the sagging farm economy across the Midwest, as part of their effort to buy political insurance against a possible Democratic wave," he said. "Republicans said fears of electoral troubles now extend beyond the initial 16 GOP incumbents placed on the 'Patriots' program by the National Republican Congressional Committee, into districts that a few months ago would have been considered fairly easy reelection victories."

All of this comes as other analysts note House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) will have new challenges holding together the caucus going into next year, including the fact that over a dozen of his lawmakers may be frequently absent as they run campaigns for other offices.

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