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Trump faces ‘Herbert Hoover moment’ in upcoming midterms, politico warns

September 26, 2026 | | Print Article

Veteran political analyst Mark Halperin has warned that, according to his sources, President Donald Trump’s “worst nightmare imaginable” has arrived.

Writing this week for the Daily Mail, Halperin revealed that all the GOP insiders he knows are warning of complete devastation for the Republican Party come the November midterm elections.

He added that not one single “Republican strategist, among the many I know,” has denied that a blue tsunami is imminent come November.

“In fact, a flurry of emails, texts and phone calls, from both MAGA-ville and more traditional conservative sources, say either I have it exactly right or that I am understating just how grim things are,” Halperin explained.

He further likened the current environment to to what happened in 1932, when then-incumbent President Herbert Hoover got completely crushed, albeit during a presidential (versus midterm) election.

“Hoover, America’s 31st president, is responsible for signing into law the Smoot-Hawley tariffs, which have gone down in history as an economic disaster that prolonged the Depression,” Halperin wrote, linking Hoover’s tariffs to President Trump’s own widely disliked tariffs.

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As evidence of how bad things have become for the GOP, Halperin pointed to a couple GOP whisperers, including conservative talk show host Steve Deace:

In the tweet above, Deace revealed that things look grim for Republicans even in the Republican stronghold of Iowa. He further appeared to attribute the grim outlook mainly to the deeply unwanted Iran War.

“Whatever we’re doing or not doing in Iran/Hormuz has become a 2020 Covid lockdown level of political albatross,” he warned. “This is approaching TARP bailout levels of unpopular in my home state.”

“[I]f the environment is this bad in my home state, where Trump has been the most popular political figure over the last decade, I can’t imagine where it is everywhere else,” he added.

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In a Substack post, longtime Democrat strategist Doug Sosnik also blamed the Iran War.

“Trump’s decision to go to war in Iran – a war of choice with no end in sight – will be viewed as the key inflection point in the midterm elections,” he wrote. “Since that time Trump and the Republicans have been in a slow and steady decline that hit a tipping point in the last two weeks.”

Things are now so bad that many stalwart Trump allies are backing away from the president in public — some quietly, some not so much.

“The midterms are going to be a f–king bloodbath, and we all know it and we all know why,” retiring Rep. Nancy Mace told The Atlantic. “We haven’t done what we said we were going to do, and Republicans are the least motivated group to turn out this cycle.”

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Meanwhile, according to NBC News, “Democrats are heading into the final stretch of the 2026 midterms with their largest lead yet in the race for Congress and President Donald Trump’s approval rating at a significant low.”

As for Halperin, he’s predicted that time is running out and that it may now be too late to change trajectory.

“Time is running out. There’s a chance that voters have already locked in their decisions and no amount of TV ads will sway them,” he wrote. “We’re nearing the point where there may only be one option left for the GOP: panic.”

Vivek Saxena
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