Republicans have begun turning on one another as the party appears poised to lose control of the U.S. House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections. Some Republicans are attributing their difficulties to President Donald Trump’s decision to start a war with Iran, while turnout will determine the outcomes of Senate races and whether Democrats can also take control of that chamber. The stakes fit a familiar historical pattern: since World War II, the president’s party has lost House seats in nearly every midterm election. Senate control, meanwhile, will be decided on a narrower map, since senators serve staggered six-year terms and the seats on the ballot this year were last contested in 2020.

The search for someone to blame has already started. Asawin Suebsaeng of Zeteo predicted that the aftermath of Election Day would bring extensive internal Republican conflict.

“There is going to be a geyser of score-settling and finger-pointing after election night. There is all but guaranteed to be a gargantuan sum of anonymous or on-record intra-GOP sniping over who should be scapegoated, with most participants being too cowardly to correctly and publicly blame their god-emperor, Donald Trump.”

Some of that conflict has already emerged. An interview with former strategist Jason Blair published Thursday by The Atlantic has placed him among the figures who could be blamed by Trump.

Blair was the architect of a redistricting effort that has ultimately backfired on Republicans. He persuaded Trump to redraw congressional districts in Republican-led states using the 2024 election map as a guide intended to favor the party. House maps are ordinarily redrawn only once a decade, after each census, which made redrawing the lines in the middle of a cycle an unusual move heading into a midterm. That strategy, however, assumed the electorate would continue to resemble the 2024 coalition. Instead, many more voters are angry about the condition of the economy and corruption, while the 2024 coalition has effectively disappeared from the MAGA fold.

Iowa Republicans made clear that they did not want to redraw their districts because, in a difficult election year, they need as many Republicans as possible concentrated in each district. Trump’s proposed lines would have dispersed Democratic voters across more congressional districts. In a wave election, that could have resulted in Indiana losing four seats.

Texas has also become a problem for Republicans. Democrats now appear competitive in congressional districts that Trump carried by 18 percentage points in 2024.

Suebsaeng wrote that the blame could fall on “Susie Wiles, James Blair, MAGA-cogs like that – even if it wasn’t completely their fault.” He said Republicans who resent the two aides could be eager to throw them under the bus.

Another name repeatedly mentioned in internal discussions is Roger Marshall, a Trump-backed senator from conservative Kansas, where Trump won by 16 percentage points in 2024. Marshall has faced criticism from people in his hometown, who described him as a terrible person and said he no longer lives in the state, potentially explaining why they believe he does little for Kansans.

“Republican operatives working on competitive races and other key figures in the party whom I’ve spoken to lately are cautiously optimistic (emphasis on the adverb) that Marshall will squeak it out and keep that Kansas seat red,” Suebsaeng wrote. “Their Democratic counterparts say the same. But even if Marshall wins, the damage is already done.”

Republicans on Capitol Hill told Suebsaeng they were furious with Marshall. At a time when the party needed to retain every seat, they said, he had made Kansas competitive. Other conservatives described him as “lazy, stubborn and not a team player.”

When Vice President JD Vance campaigned in Kansas last month, he defended Marshall, saying, “When the lobbyists and the special interests and the far-left lunatics come and try to fight against the people in this room, Roger Marshall has been on the right side every single time.” Shortly afterward, a protester reportedly shouted, “He sued his patients!” before being removed.

A New York Times report said Marshall sued more than 700 of his patients and had 81 arrested. A longtime Trump adviser and a Republican close to the president told Suebsaeng they were frustrated that Trump had tried to defend Marshall, saying that doing so in a viral, “antisemitic-slur-prone way” had drawn more attention to the debt controversy inside and outside Kansas.

“They’re bleeding us in Kansas,” a Republican lawmaker on Capitol Hill told Suebsaeng. A White House official called the possibility of Kansas flipping to Democrats “inexcusable.”

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has also become a source of concern. He abandoned his campaign on July 4, as the United States celebrated its 250th birthday, for a vacation with his girlfriend in Iceland and London. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, warned Republicans that Paxton was “lazy,” but the party did not heed him. When the results come in, the margins in Kansas and in the Texas districts Trump carried by 18 points in 2024 will provide the first raw material for the score-settling Suebsaeng described.