ANOTHER LOOK AT THE GOP’S 2026 CHANCES. Monday’s newsletter — “With Trump approval ticking down, midterm elections are still a gloomy picture for GOP” — was pretty pessimistic about Republicans’ chances of holding the House this November. Those chances do, in fact, look terrible. The numbers — President Donald Trump’s job approval, generic ballot polling, historical precedents, the issues — are what they are. But there might be other factors that, when added to the mix, could improve the picture for the GOP.I asked former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who masterminded the most spectacular midterm of all — the 1994 Republican revolution — whether things are as bad as they can seem. “I think so much of the current thinking is focused on the present and forgets that the election is still months away,” Gingrich told me. “If the election were now, we would clearly lose the House and possibly lose the Senate. My hunch (with no insider knowledge) is that Trump believes he has until July 4 to do what he thinks is necessary and then shift into a campaign mode for four months.”Once in campaign mode, Gingrich continued, Trump has to address gasoline prices. In an essay last week, Gingrich wrote, “I know that President Trump and his entire team know that by August gasoline prices must be coming down, and the American people must have a sense that affordability is being addressed by the Republicans. If gasoline prices remain as high as they are (or higher), no strategy will avoid a Republican defeat — and no amount of redrawing congressional districts will be able to overcome the wave of anger that will have built by Labor Day.”