‘The midterm election looks really bad for Republicans’: Conservative exposes how ‘old’ Trump is creating major ‘vulnerabilities’ for the GOP

Washington, D.C. – In a 47-minute conversation on the November 17 episode of The Bulwark Podcast, longtime conservative strategist and editor-at-large Bill Kristol delivered what may be the most direct warning yet from inside the right-leaning commentariat

President Donald Trump’s approval rating has collapsed to levels that historically spell disaster for the party in power, and Republicans are sleepwalking toward a 2026 midterm bloodbath unless something dramatically changes.

Kristol, who has been a vocal Trump critic since 2016 but still commands respect among traditional conservatives, told host Tim Miller that the president’s numbers are no longer just “soft”—they are entering territory that traditionally produces 30-, 40-, even 50-seat House losses for the incumbent party.

He pointed to a combination of economic pain from tariffs and the lingering shutdown, the president’s visible age and self-absorption, and the slow-drip toxicity of the Jeffrey Epstein files as the toxic cocktail now eroding even once-loyal Trump voters.

“There’s some chunk of the Trump coalition, both the sort of normie Republicans out there who just look around—what is all this with the ballroom and the gold at the White House, and he’s old and he’s falling asleep and it’s all about him,” Kristol said. “He’s not watching out for us. Some of this is tariffs, etc. Some combination of that and Epstein and other issues, where there seems to be more vulnerability.”

The numbers Kristol cited are brutal. When Trump was sworn in on January 20, his approval stood at 47% according to The Economist/YouGov tracking average. Ten months later, as of November 17, that same tracker shows just 39% approval against 58% disapproval—a net drop of 14 points and a full eight-point decline in raw approval since inauguration day.

Other polls are even worse: CNN/SSRS on November 3 had him at 37% approve, 63% disapprove; Emerson College November 3–4 registered 41–49; Nate Silver’s aggregate on November 17 sat at 41.8–54.4; and even the usually friendly RMG Research showed only 46–51 in early November.

Perhaps most ominously, Trump has now spent 21 consecutive days underwater—the longest stretch of his second term—and independents have turned decisively against him, with 62% disapproving according to the latest Gallup survey.

Kristol was blunt about the historical precedent: when a president’s approval falls into the high 30s a year out from midterms, the House majority almost always flips. He told Miller that if Trump settles at 38% or lower by spring 2026, “the midterm election looks bad—really bad—for Republicans.”

Cook Political Report currently rates 28 Republican-held seats as Toss-up or Lean Democratic, and Democratic strategists privately say they are now eyeing as many as 45 GOP districts if the national environment stays this sour.

Much of the damage, Kristol argued, is self-inflicted. Trump’s sweeping tariffs have added roughly $1,000 per year to the average household’s costs according to the Tax Foundation’s November analysis, and the 39-day government shutdown that finally ended last week delayed SNAP benefits for 42 million Americans and triggered nationwide shortages of everything from meat inspections to passport processing.

At the same time, the Epstein saga refuses to fade: the November 12 Phase 2 document release included Epstein’s 2017 email to Larry Summers calling Trump “dangerous” with “not one decent cell in his body,” along with the 2019 Wolff exchange implying Trump knew about “the girls” at Mar-a-Lago.

Compounding the political problem is the perception that Trump is more focused on personal spectacle than on voters’ daily struggles.

The White House’s lavish gold-themed state dinners, the president’s repeated dozing during daytime events–most recently caught on camera November 6 when a visiting head of state collapsed in the Oval Office and Trump appeared frozen for 42 seconds, and persistent questions about his health have all fed a narrative that the 79-year-old president is increasingly detached.

Kristol acknowledged that the MAGA base remains fiercely loyal, but warned that the broader Trump coalition—the suburban women, college-educated men, and working-class independents who gave Republicans their 2024 margins—is peeling away fast.

“These are the people who voted for him because they thought he’d be the chaos agent who gets things done,” he said. “Now they look around and see chaos, but not much getting done for them.”

Inside the GOP, the anxiety is palpable even if few are willing to say it publicly. House Republicans quietly tell campaign operatives they are bracing for a 35–50 seat loss if nothing changes.

TOP STORIES

• Marjorie Taylor Greene drops screenshots of private texts to Trump about Epstein — now says ‘He’s coming after me hard’
• Trump screws his 3-time voter on live TV after she begs for help – then boasts, ‘I think she’d vote for me again’
• ‘He’s dangerous’: Epstein grew terrified of Trump, fearing the worst before his death

The Trump–Marjorie Taylor Greene feud, the president’s public dismissal of her as “Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene,” and his weekend outbursts at female reporters have only added to the sense of a White House spiraling out of control.

Kristol closed the interview with a prediction that stopped Miller cold: if Trump’s approval rating is still below 40% by Memorial Day 2026, Republicans will lose the House, and the Senate will be a coin flip.

“And once that happens,” he said, “the last two years of this term become a lame-duck presidency with nonstop investigations. That’s the scenario Republican leaders are privately gaming out right now—and they’re terrified.”