Tom Emmer

Republicans are bracing for a brutal reckoning in the midterm elections, with the party set to lose control of multiple governor mansions, more than 400 state-legislative seats, its House majority, and possibly its control of the Senate, too.

As Election Day nears, some Republicans are publicly admitting that their poor predicament is due to President Donald Trump’s policy decisions, which have made the cost of living go up, contrary to his promises in the 2024 campaign.

Yet one Republican leader had a different excuse: Voters are simply too “satisfied” with Trump’s leadership.

Yes, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer actually said that on Sunday in an appearance on ABC’s “This Week,” telling host Jonathan Karl that Republicans are at risk because their voters may stay home because they are happy with the state of the country and don’t feel compelled to vote.

I think the midterms, you typically have the party that wins the White House is satisfied. Donald Trump has sealed the border that was wide open under Joe Biden. Donald Trump and Republicans have made sure that Americans didn’t get the greatest tax increase in our history. Literally, he and Republicans have been pulling the economy out of the ditch. Nobody seems to want to report on the fact that real wages are up on the rise, that poverty is at the lowest level ever. Nobody wants to report the good news that is in our economy. And this is what Donald Trump and Republicans have done.

The message is, if our people will turn out a—you may be satisfied, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t vote. You show up and vote, we’re going to be fine, Jon.

Contrary to Emmer’s delusional take, voters—including many Republicans—are not “satisfied” with Trump’s leadership.

Trump’s net approval rating is more than 22 percentage points underwater, with just 37% approving of the job he’s doing in office, according to election analyst Nate Silver’s polling average. High-quality surveys have Trump’s approval even lower, in the mid- to low-30% range.

To get that low, it means that even many Republican voters—who had been sticking by Trump through the years—now say they are unsatisfied.

For example, a Pew Research Center survey released last week found Trump with an abysmal 30% approval rating—down 17 points since the first days of his second term.

“Much of this decline in his approval ratings over the course of his term is among Trump’s own 2024 voters—67% of validated Trump 2024 voters approve of his job performance today while 31% disapprove,” Pew wrote about its poll results. “At the beginning of his term, 95% approved.”

That’s certainly not a sign of satisfaction!

While Emmer’s reasoning for the GOP’s struggles is completely wrong, he is right that his party is in for a world of hurt in 22 days because Republican voters may indeed stay home. That’s how the bottom falls out for the party, and puts otherwise red states and districts at risk.

But if Republican leaders like Emmer take away from a midterm drubbing that voters were too happy with Trump and the GOP’s leadership and thus change nothing about how their party operates, it will cause a similarly poor outcome for Republicans in future elections.

Republicans even admitted as such after Emmer’s Sunday show appearance.

“I sat here shaking my head at the political malpractice that was committed on this air with you by Tom Emmer,” former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie told Karl after Emmer’s segment aired.

Christie continued, “Tom is smarter than that, he knows better than that, but what you heard throughout it is this absolute requirement that you must stand by everything Donald Trump says and does if you want to remain in leadership in the House or the Senate. And it is malpractice to good Republicans all across this country who care about the issues we care about and then we have guys like Tom, who know better, on the air, on his knee in front of Donald Trump as he is saying things like he said in the lead-in here that he can say the stupidest things in the world and people will believe him. It’s not true anymore.”

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