Published:  14:57 EDT, 24 September 2026   |  Updated:  10:58 EDT, 25 September 2026   I have an investment banker friend who once offered this sage advice: 'Sometimes the appropriate response to a crisis is, in fact, to panic.'Republicans are not quite at that stage yet, but prudence suggests they should at least consider it.With just 40 days remaining until Election Day and with early voting about to commence in much of the country, the Grand Old Party finds itself in dire straits, indeed.It's hard to believe that President Donald Trump headlined the party's unprecedented national midterm convention in Dallas just two weeks ago. It seems like ancient history. For the intervening fortnight has been a living nightmare for Republicans saddled with the stalled Iran war, incessant headlines about Trump family buckraking, rising gas and diesel prices, and White House fecklessness in the face of public fears over AI and data centers.It's all mixed together to create a rancid stew for the president's party, but you wouldn't necessarily know that from the party's muscular TV ads, press releases and social media posts, almost all of which project the confidence of the man who leads them.Too bad for them bravado is no match for reality. It's hard to believe that President Donald Trump headlined the party's unprecedented national midterm convention in Dallas just two weeks agoWhile Trump and White House mouthpieces are maintaining stiff upper lips, the code of political omerta was broken Wednesday by veteran Iowa talk show host Steve Deace, a man both MAGA and plugged in.Deace's plaintive cry on X started like this: 'Yesterday, Iowa House Republicans were informed by their own pollsters that if you are in a +15 district you're within the margin for error, if you're in a +10 district you're underwater, and that this might end being an even worse midterm environment than 2006.'Translation: Safe Republican seats are now at risk and even the GOP candidates who thought they could sleepwalk their way to re-election better wake-up and start campaigning.In 2006, George W Bush was president and his party lost the House and Senate in the midterms.When pundits talk about wave elections, this is what they mean.'I slept on whether to share this publicly,' Deace continued. 'This morning I ultimately decided the truth should be shared while there is [sic] still six weeks left to do something about it for the good of the country… If 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.'Here's another data point. The Cook Political Report has shifted its outlook for the Senate race in Kansas, where the incumbent Roger Marshall is defending against a challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton.What was once considered a 'likely Republican' seat is now only 'lean Republican.' That may not seem like a big deal, but Kansas Democrats haven't won a Senate seat since 1932.That irony won't be lost on this president because the chief executive in 1932 was Herbert Hoover.'I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover,' Trump told my friend Marc Caputo on The Axios Show in June. The Cook Political Report has shifted its outlook for the senate race in Kansas, where Roger Marshall (above) is defending against a challenge from Democrat Adam Hamilton 'I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover,' Trump told my friend Marc Caputo on The Axios Show in JuneHoover, 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. Shantytowns built across the country by the unemployed and homeless of the '30s were labelled Hoovervilles.Echoing Deace from the other side of the aisle is Doug Sosnik, the longtime top-shelf Democratic strategist whose campaign memos are read like the Rosetta Stone by the political community.Sosnik declared on the same day as Deace that 'Since early September, there has been a noticeable shift toward Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. This is due to the cumulative effects of a combination of factors that have been building over recent months, including a failed war in Iran, rising prices, brazen self-enrichment by Trump and his family, and the increasingly erratic behavior of an out of touch Commander in Chief. As a result, Democrats are now positioned for gains that looked unimaginable at the beginning of the year.'Team Trump points to their vastly superior fundraising, campaign spending capacities and voter contact efforts, as well as the weakness of the Democratic brand generally and the vulnerabilities of many of the opposition's candidates. If things are so dire, they ask, why do polls show Republican hopefuls in a strong position in Blue states such as Maine, New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota.Perhaps. But why are Republican candidates themselves now openly distancing themselves from the President?Read MoreThe answer: While public polls are horrendous for Republicans, the private ones are worse.Individual Republican candidates, seeing the President's poll standing, have gone into every-woman-and-man-for-themselves mode, distancing themselves from the White House on hot button items up to and including immigration, the issue that helped propel Trump into the White House, twice.One Republican senator tweeted Wednesday: 'When ICE operates… it needs to coordinate with local law enforcement. Our sheriffs and police know these communities better than anyone, and working together keeps officers and residents safe.'You get one guess who posted that.None other than Senator Roger Marshall from deep red Kansas.What has been most telling to me is the reaction that I've received over the last week to my reporting in the Daily Mail about the prospect of a Blue tsunami. I have not heard from one Republican strategist, among the many I know, who has taken issue with my reporting.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.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.We're nearing the point where there may only be one option left for the GOP: panic.