By Kurt Schlichter

It’s times like these that remind me that the Latin root of the words “Senate” and “senile” are the same. Of course, all bad senators aren’t senile. Some are just stupid. But sadly, even the stupid ones are necessary because we must keep the Senate in 2026 to make Donald Trump’s second administration a success. That means we must be smart and self-sacrificing, and GOP senators (and aspiring senators) must be smart and self-sacrificing. Which means we have a challenge.

We’ve not only got to keep the majority; we’ve got to expand it. With a small majority, every mediocrity eager for a minute in the spotlight – and, in one case, a genuine legislator who just isn’t as conservative as the rest of the party – can create huge problems for pushing the America First agenda through. We need more solid Republicans, by which I mean Republicans who either eagerly support the agenda or are weak enough to be easily bullied into supporting the agenda. I prefer the eager supporters, but a vote in favor counts the same whether it’s done from a legislator’s genuine beliefs or because of the cold terror of facing the voters and explaining why the squishy senator collaborated with the enemy.

Right now, we Republicans have a majority of three seats. Not all of them are reliable. Susan Collins (R-Maine) is a moderate. So is her state. I’ve never held that against her, and no one should. She is totally forthright about who she is and what she thinks, and she does her best, in her view, to represent her state. She’s neither an opportunist nor a glory hog. She’s just not as conservative as we are. We will never get a better senator out of Maine, and as much as I would like to be able to count on her 100 percent of the time, I’m happy to be able to count on her 80 percent of the time as opposed to 0 percent of the time, which is how often we would get support from whichever maple syrup Marxist would replace her. She’s running next year, and we should all eagerly and unreservedly support her.

Another of the squishy seats belongs to Lisa Murkowski (D-Frozen Wastes), and Republicans can rely on her loyalty as much as a staffer for the Bulwark can rely on his wife’s loyalty on pool cleaning day. A lot of people say that she’s not good for anything, but that’s not true; Moaning Lisa is always good for a quote about how Donald Trump is disappointing her. Sadly, she’s not up in 2026. Hopefully, by the time she comes around for reelection, Alaska will get its head out of its igloo and set this nepotistic nitwit adrift on the proverbial ice floe. 

And then there’s the rotating seat for the obnoxious senator du jour who thinks that if they present themselves as an obstacle to the president’s agenda, they’re going to get all sorts of attention from the Washington Post and the rest of the regime media, and it’s going to work out well for them. Do you remember how that went for Joni Ernst (R-Corn) a few months ago when she registered some reservations about Pete Hegseth? Well, it went poorly. Now, Joni is no dummy. About five seconds into the tsunami-like backlash, she did a 180-degree turn and became the SecDef’s biggest booster. She should be rewarded for this. She has demonstrated the appropriate responsiveness to her constituents; that it was caused by cold sweats over the thought of being primaried by someone who actually believes in this America First stuff is largely irrelevant.

A big loser who’s not up in 2026 is James Lankford (R-France), famous for collaborating with the Democrats on an immigration bill that would’ve made Donald Trump closing the border totally impossible. Jimmy is one of those Republicans who never seems to learn about cavorting with the commies – if he was Ned Beatty, he’d be up for another canoe trip the next weekend because, you know, what are the chances lightning strikes twice?

Then there’s that guy from Utah who’s not Mike Lee (R-Awesome). He replaced Mitt Romney and occasionally channels him, but he usually comes through. Utah is one of those states that should be completely based, but since you can’t generally win without being a Republican, all the people who would normally be Democrats pretend to be GOP and it’s no surprise that they fail to be properly based.

Speaking of failing to be properly based, John Cornyn (R-Jello) is running for reelection in Texas, where I may or may not be a voting resident by 2026. Cornholio is the guy who decided it would be a good idea to collaborate with the Democrats and give them a win on gun control. He’s one of those reach-across-the-aisle, bipartisan guys who would be literally made of tofu if he were any softer. Ken Paxton, the Lone Star Attorney General much hated by the Fredocons (like Utah, Texas suffers from an infestation of faux Republicans), announced he will primary the Cornmeister. Cornyn’s brand of corporate-friendly, generic, transactional Republicanism is usually enough to win; Paxton still needs to demonstrate that he can win Texas, which the Democrats are always trying to contest and always failing to win. I prefer the hardcore guy, but the challenge is that some polls have Paxton losing the general. As annoying as the incumbent is, we’ve got to keep the seat, so if Paxton will lose, we will have to stick with the Corn Dawg. Ugh; remember that part about self-sacrificing? We primary voters must do that too.

And that brings us to Thom Tillis (R-2nd Tier BBQ), the man voted “Senator Least Likely to be Confused with a Particle Physicist.” He’s doing his tiresome Hamlet act again, the one he did right before Pete Hegseth’s vote in which he let it be known that he had doubts about the nominee. Well, the pushback was so substantial it even got through his thick skull and he jumped aboard the Pete Express. Now, he’s doing it again with District of Columbia United States attorney nominee Ed Martin, a solid performer who’s already begun cleaning up that cesspool since being named acting USA. Thomboy is upset because Ed Martin stood up for J6 political prisoners, raising the question of why the hell Tillis wasn’t standing up for the J6 political prisoners, too. 

His antics are ridiculous. You don’t embarrass the president. Look, this isn’t even a purity test. This is an IQ test. Is Tillis really dumb enough to defy Trump going into this election? North Carolinians will vote for this guy, but not by huge margins. Conservative voters in that state despise him, with good reason. He can’t further alienate them and win. Anybody whose political instincts tell him to flip off the president and outrage his constituents over the United States Attorney for the District of Columbia has no business being in politics, much less in any other occupation that involves interacting with other human beings. He needs to stop the handwringing “To be or not to be” crap and get on the team. Otherwise, it’s an indication that he’ll blow the election and the Republicans in North Carolina need to be looking around for someone who’s smarter than a box of South Carolina rocks.

Don’t even get me started on the unconfirmed reports that he – and some others named above – are resisting cutting Biden green grifts as part of reconciliation. Is it to much to ask that alleged conservatives own the libs instead of conservative voters? Apparently.

Finally, we need to look at the guys who aren’t in the Senate right now but could be. New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu (R-Democrats), true to form, screwed over the Republicans yet again. The sole mark in his favor is that somehow the residents of that benighted state enjoy his brand of spineless pseudo-conservatism and might well elect him to the Senate in 2026. But, of course, party and the country be damned; he prioritized himself and took himself out of the running. For some reason, he thinks he might be president someday. This raises the question that Snake Plissken memorably posed: “President of what?”

And then there’s Georgia. Representing the coastal elites despite his ZIP code, Democrat Jon Ossoff (D-Marin County) is vulnerable. We just need the best candidate possible to take him down. There have been several people talked about. Some, like Marjorie Taylor Greene, are popular with American Firsters but, sadly, are less popular with actual Georgia voters. If she runs, according to current polling (which needs to be taken with a Mount Everest-sized grain of salt), we lose any chance of flipping that seat. But if we run Brian Kemp, the current governor who always seems to prevail, we will probably win it. The problem is that Kemp and Trump have famously been at odds. Moreover, Kemp has presidential ambitions, which are not insane like Sununu’s are. He pretty much has to run and win that Senate seat, or he’s got no chance at ever being president because we’re not going to forget if he pulls a Sununu and screws us out of a seat.

There are also several open seats in the Midwest, including Illinois, Kentucky, and some cold states. We need serious candidates in all of those, but most are a reach.

In short, we need to do something as Republicans that we’re not used to doing, which is playing it smart. We need our senators to play it smart, too, which is also an unfamiliar concept. But it doesn’t have to be. Donald Trump has shown the way to win. We’re going to have a great economy by November 2026. This is our chance to run up the score. The only way we can lose is if Republicans are dumb. And that’s why we should be worried.

Follow Kurt on Twitter @KurtSchlichter. Pre-order Kurt Schlichter and Irina Moises’s action-packed new noir fantasy novel, Lost Angeles: Silver Bullets On The Sunset Strip! Also, check out Kurt’s Kelly Turnbull People’s Republic series of conservative action novels.