Mike Johnson winds up with even more egg on his face months before the midterms

Mike Johnson’s razor-thin majority just suffered another blow months before the midterms.

California Rep. Kevin Kiley announced Monday he’s leaving the GOP and identifying as an independent. While he’ll caucus with Republicans for the remainder of his term, his switch indicates he won’t be a reliable vote going forward.

“It is no secret I’ve been frustrated, at times disgusted, by the hyper-partisanship in Congress,” he said in his announcement. “In the last year it’s led to the longest shutdown in U.S. history, a massive increase in healthcare costs, and of course, a pointless redistricting [battle].”

While Kiley, a relative moderate, is selling his exit from the GOP as a denunciation of partisan politics, it’s apparent that his now-former party’s overreach pushed him over the edge.

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Now, like many endangered Republican incumbents, he’s fighting for his own political survival.

Tr*mp is making Republicans super unpopular

Elected with a popular vote win, Tr*mp has squandered all of his goodwill and is now facing the lowest approval rating of his second term. The majority of Americans oppose the carpet-bombing of Iran, which has taken the lives of more than 1,330 Iranian civilians and seven U.S. service members. A New York Times analysis found it was likely that the U.S. was responsible for striking a girls’ school, which Iranian officials say killed at least 175 people

Due to the conflict’s far-reaching impact, gas prices are skyrocketing and the world economy is now on the cusp of a recession. Already, the U.S. economy appeared to be on the brink for working-and middle-class Americans. Employers added a mere 116,000 jobs in 2025, and have cut jobs in two of the last three months. The AI boom, which experts say is the only entity holding up the economy, threatens to upend the social construct and cause widespread joblessness.

Thanks to Tr*mp’s tariffs, which the Supreme Court recently ruled against, inflation has steadily been on the rise over the last year.

Gestapo-like immigration agents have also terrorized immigrant communities across the U.S., and killed two American citizens in Minneapolis. The majority of U.S. voters have a negative view of ICE.

That’s all to say: the state of the union is very bad! For much of the last century, the president’s party has almost always lost House seats in the midterm. History suggests the GOP is in for a shackling.

Viewing the writing on the wall, 32 House Republicans are not seeking re-election.

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GOP’s power play looks it will backfire

To protect their vulnerable majority, the White House has pushed for aggressive redistricting nationwide. While their efforts have been successful in some states, the cynical strategy looks it will backfire.

Many of the new maps were redrawn based on 2024, when high percentages of Latinos and young men swung towards the GOP. Recent election results indicate those trends are not holding.

Most notably, Texas redrew its map to create up to five more right-leaning districts, counting on Latinos in border districts to be reliable Republican votes. In 2024, Tr*mp won several border counties that Democrats have long dominated, including one that Hillary Clinton took by 60 points.

But the results of last week’s primaries indicate those same Latino voters are swinging back towards Democrats. In multiple Latino-majority counties, more voters were cast in the Democratic primary than for Kamala Harris in the 2024 election.

Now, Republicans may only pick one seat in the Lone Star State.

As a counter to the GOP’s dirty tracks, voters in California approved the redrawing of their state’s congressional map. The effort could add up to five new Democratic seats.

One of those is Kiley’s.

Mike Johnson gets walked over

Kiley’s switch reeks of desperation. His current district, which spans the California-Nevada border and runs through the Sacramento suburbs, has been broken up.

Now, Kiley is running in a district centered around the state capital, which Harris would’ve carried by six points. Clearly, he’s betting his advantageous switch helps him beat the odds.

As House Speaker, Mike Johnson has turned Congress into a doormat for the Tr*mp administration. But now, voters and departing members are walking all over him. The GOP majority is down to a mere two votes.

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