Conservative warns GOP facing 'toxic cocktail' of weaknesses in midterms

On Friday morning, April 17, Iranian and Trump Administration officials announced that the Strait of Hormuz — a waterway crucial to the flow of oil in the Middle East — had been reopened. Oil prices, according to NBC News, fell by 12 percent in response to the news.

During an early afternoon appearance on MS NOW, The Lincoln Project's Stuart Stevens — a veteran conservative strategist who is very much in the Never Trump camp — stressed that despite the reopening, the Republican Party is facing a "really toxic cocktail" of political liabilities in the 2026 midterms.

Stevens told host Chris Jansing, "Now, for the first time since Vietnam, there's going to be automatic draft registration for these voters. That didn't happen before the war. So, that's a really toxic cocktail in politics. You have low job opportunities, high gas prices, not a good job situation for young people, and the draft. I mean, that's a pretty bad mix."

Trump's "style," according to Stevens, is to "say things are better than they are."

"So, he'll just deny this," Stevens explained. "And then, he'll attack someone else."

Over the years, Stevens (now in his early seventies) worked with a who's-who of conservatives — including former President George W. Bush, the late Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney. And Stevens, drawing on his experience, told Jansing that in 2026, Trump is "running into a particularly dangerous political environment."

Stevens told Jansing, "There is no way that Republicans can separate themselves from Trump. Because if their opponent doesn't attack them, Trump will attack them. So, they're sort of tied to the mast here, and I think it looks very bleak for him."

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