On Thursday, security expert Miles Taylor, who served as deputy chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security during President Donald Trump’s first term, pointed to what he considers “the best evidence” that Trump and the Republican Party see a political downfall approaching and are desperate to prevent it. The argument lands with control of both chambers of Congress at stake in the 2026 midterm elections. Taylor’s analysis was published by Alternet.

Taylor, a former administration official who became known as a leaker after writing a 2018 New York Times op-ed — published anonymously at the time — describing resistance to Trump inside the administration, wrote that Republicans are aware they are about to “get burned down.” He argued that the House has been governed by fear of Trump and that surveys indicate the situation may soon change.

“For two years,” Taylor writes, “the House has been ruled by fear of one man. Surveys show that’s about to change. I spent years as a House staffer and have watched it operate under presidents of both parties. Never until Donald Trump have I seen the chamber so slavishly devoted to one person, so scared to cross him, and so willing to forfeit its constitutional duties for fear of that boogeyman. On issues of breathtaking corruption — from the Trump family’s self-enrichment to his relentless revenge against his perceived foes — Republicans have kept their mouths shut. The reason for that silence isn’t a mystery. Republicans who cross Trump get primaried, threatened, and smeared.”

According to Taylor, lawmakers have watched Trump defeat Republican critics, including outgoing Senator Thomas Massie (R-KY) and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, and have “got the message.” He said the result is a party in which GOP members “almost tiptoe down the halls hoping not to run into a reporter who will ask them about Trump and who pretend not to see what’s happening in plain sight.”

Taylor cited recent election data as evidence that this dynamic could change. Charlie Cook, founder of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, told Forbes this week that the loss of the House Republican majority has been “kind of a done deal for a good while.” The publication’s analysis shifted 15 races toward Democrats in one week. Republicans currently hold 15 of the 22 races it rates as toss-ups. Democrats need a net gain of three seats to take back the House — a margin that would hand them the speaker’s gavel, committee chairmanships, and the power to set the chamber’s agenda for the final two years of Trump’s term.

Taylor also wrote that “Democrats now lead Senate polling in Texas, Ohio, Iowa, Alaska and Maine. In Texas, James Talarico leads Ken Paxton 50 to 44 in a Marist poll.” Control of the Senate, where Republicans hold a narrow majority, will be decided on the same ballot.

He said the clearest evidence may come from Trump’s campaign schedule. Trump promised to hold events in 35 competitive districts during the fall, but his first rallies are scheduled for Durant, Oklahoma, and Mobile, Alabama.

“The best evidence seemed to from Trump’s own schedule,” Taylor wrote. “When the president of the United States has to spend his time shoring up Alabama, Republicans in swing districts should be shaking in their boots. Nobody’s coming to save them.” Whether the rest of the fall schedule fills in the competitive districts Trump promised remains to be seen.