The House of MAGA is in Disarray.

Is there still a path to Democratic victories in '26? I think so.

The House of MAGA is collapsing under the weight of Epstein files, recent progressive wins, and internal desertions—and “Bubba” hasn’t even entered the frame yet.

The House of MAGA is in disarray. Massive No Kings rallies, recent election wins for Democrats, especially progressives, and pushback against Trump’s militarized ICE attacks on American cities, have the Trumpies reeling.

All this without me even mentioning Bubba. Oops, I guess I just did. Well, you know the old saying: “When they go low…”

While Democrats are pissed at what they see as a sellout by some of their own senators on the ending-the-shutdown vote, Republicans are in even worse shape with possible mass desertions around the release of the Epstein files.

The Democratic Party brand still has worse polling numbers than the world’s most hated man (is that even possible?) Support for Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza remains the big albatross around the party’s neck.

However, things can change rapidly in a short time. Ask Zohran Mamdani, whose rise is a case study in how insurgent energy, message discipline, and ground game can flip the script in under a year. Given all that, can they win back the House and possibly the Senate in ‘26 without dumping the party’s current misleaders, like Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer?

That’s the question I posed to Meredith Shiner on Friday on Hitting Left. Neither of us would make a hard prediction. Leading up to 2028, we both agreed that in the long run, unseating Trump and rolling back the fascist tide will require either a radical transformation of the Democratic Party or its replacement with something new. But I left the conversation believing there is still a pathway to big election wins in ‘26 even with their unpopular brand. But this can happen only if the base — that’s us — make our voices heard above the deafening media noise and party propaganda machines and lean heavily into voter anger at the Trump autocratic grifter regime and the pain it has caused millions of us, here and around the globe.

Exit polls show cost of living is the top issue across states. Candidates like Mamdani won by offering bold affordability plans while not shying away from the bigger social and political issues.

So yes, the Democratic Party needs radical change to survive, and they certainly need to dump the likes of Jeffries and Schumer, like they did Andrew Cuomo in New York. But they don’t have to do all that at once to win back Congress. They need to run against Trump, not on their own brand. The polling shows their favorability is underwater, but midterm dynamics, turnout energy, and affordability-focused campaigns give them a path to retake the House and possibly the Senate.