Our new book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections. Trump was a liability for Republicans in the 2025 off-year elections. He could be a bigger liability in the 2026 midterm -- and not just because of his low approval ratings.
Congressional Republicans are in a tough spot. On the one hand, anything bearing Obama's name is toxic to GOP activists. On the other hand, the general public now favors the Affordable Care Act by nearly a two-to-one margin. And about half of those who receive ACA premium subsidies are either self-employed or work for a small business — exactly the kind of voters that marginal Republicans need in a general election.
Representative Jen Kiggans, Republican of Virginia, once called for eliminating the Affordable Care Act.
Representative Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, has repeatedly called it “a disaster.”
But the two are part of a small group of G.O.P. members of Congress — most of them facing tough re-election races next year in competitive districts — who have broken with their party to push for a temporary extension of a crucial piece of the law: subsidies, currently slated to expire at the end of the year, to help Americans afford their premiums.
Their eagerness to vote for an extension, which was Democrats’ main demand in the weekslong government shutdown fight, underscores how entrenched the health care law has become, even among Republicans who once fought to kill it. And it helps explain why President Trump, who has long railed against the law, commonly called Obamacare, is said to be weighing such a move as he and his party toil to address affordability issues that could be a major liability for them going into the midterm elections.
Letting the subsidies lapse would put a heavy financial burden on millions of voters just as the G.O.P. is grasping to keep control of Congress.
