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{"id":27486,"date":"2026-10-14T12:04:42","date_gmt":"2026-10-14T12:04:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-some-republicans-write-off-the-house\/"},"modified":"2026-10-14T12:04:42","modified_gmt":"2026-10-14T12:04:42","slug":"capitol-agenda-some-republicans-write-off-the-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/capitol-agenda-some-republicans-write-off-the-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitol agenda: Some Republicans write off the House"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Top Republican officials are increasingly <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/10\/14\/house-republicans-private-lost-cause-01117673\" target=\"_blank\">accepting the House may already be lost<\/a> as they shift to trying to limit the damage and salvage a Senate majority.<\/p>\n<p>After waiting for weeks to see if the party\u2019s deluge of money could help a raft of GOP incumbents who appeared to be in terrible shape in internal polling, more recent internal Republican polling still shows deep erosion in Trump country.<\/p>\n<p>Now, Trump officials and Republican operatives say more candidates may have their funding from GOP campaign groups cut off in the coming days, before it\u2019s too late to spend the money elsewhere to shore up other shaky races.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI speak to a lot of people. There is no one who has privately stated that they believe Republicans can hold the House \u2014 not in recent weeks, anyway,\u201d said former Rep. Carlos Curbelo, who lost in the last big House Democratic wave in 2018 after representing a South Florida swing district.<\/p>\n<p>Five senior House Republicans, granted anonymity to candidly discuss their party\u2019s precarious position, told Blue Light News the House has all but slipped from their grasp.<\/p>\n<p>One of those Republicans compared the situation to Democrats\u2019 2006 flip of the House \u2014 specifically noting that potential Senate seat flips in North Carolina and Ohio could have downballot effects, while House candidates in redrawn red states like Florida and Texas are \u201changing on with their fingernails.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>President Donald Trump\u2019s political operation and the top House GOP super PAC have been cutting off ad spending across the map in races they feel are no longer winnable or worth the money, including for Reps. Mariannette Miller-Meeks and Tom Kean Jr.<\/p>\n<p>And some national operatives are already starting to point fingers over who\u2019s to blame, arguing that surprisingly-competitive Senate races are sucking away donor attention \u2014 therefore forcing House operatives into tough spending decisions.<\/p>\n<p>White House officials insist they\u2019re not giving up on the House, and that moves by the president and his team to shift the allocation of resources shouldn\u2019t be seen as them prioritizing one chamber over another.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe cutting of resources should not dictate what the philosophy is or what the outlook is for the overall race at large,\u201d a senior White House official said. \u201cIt\u2019s not doom and gloom around here. Everyone\u2019s very positive, upbeat.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>But on the ground, Republicans <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/10\/14\/with-no-october-surprise-in-sight-republicans-try-to-save-themselves-01117246\" target=\"_blank\"><u>seem to be giving up hope for any saving grace<\/u><\/a> from the president in the final stretch.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPresident Trump has made this election all about himself,\u201d a second senior House Republican said in an interview. \u201cNow we have to survive that political storm.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b><i>What else we\u2019re watching:\u00a0<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n<p><b>\u2014 WATERS, CASTEN FACE OFF ROILS DEMS: <\/b>House Democrats are <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/10\/14\/democrats-face-clash-over-maxine-waters-01117667\" target=\"_blank\">poised to face a polarizing choice<\/a> on the other side of the midterm elections: Shove aside one of the most prominent Black progressives in their party in favor of a middle-aged White guy with similar policy views, or hand one of the most powerful gavels in Congress back to a nearly 90-year-old as their base clamors for generational change. That fight between Rep. Sean Casten, 54, and Maxine Waters, 88, to be Financial Services\u2019 top Democrat also threatens to derail the party\u2019s unity as members race to take back control of the chamber.<\/p>\n<p><b>\u2014 GOP\u2019S TAX CUT DATA DELAYED:\u00a0<\/b>The Trump administration <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/10\/14\/administration-delays-irs-data-gop-tax-cuts-01116807\" target=\"_blank\"><u>is delaying the release<\/u><\/a> of detailed data showing how Republicans\u2019 2025 tax cuts affected millions of Americans\u2019 taxes, even as it tries to tout the law ahead of the midterms. The data \u2014 which is expected to provide the first detailed look at taxpayers taking advantage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, including <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2026\/03\/31\/trump-tax-break-overtime-democrats-00848495\" target=\"_blank\">new deductions<\/a> for overtime wages and tipped income \u2014 was scheduled to be released in July and updated in September. But the IRS said it\u2019s awaiting approval to publish the figures. The delay has already irked some who complain it is part of a pattern of the administration withholding otherwise routine releases of tax data.<\/p>\n<p>Meredith Lee Hill, Andrew Howard, Mia McCarthy, Jasper Goodman, Katherine Hapgood, Riley Rogerson and Brian Faler contributed to this report.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Top Republican officials are increasingly accepting the House may already be lost as they shift to trying to limit the damage and salvage a Senate majority. After waiting for weeks to see if the party\u2019s deluge of money could help a raft of GOP incumbents who appeared to be in terrible shape in internal polling, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27486\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}