REPUBLICANS HANG ON. By a number of conventional measures, the Republican Party should be headed for a huge loss in this November’s House midterm elections. But some experts think the results will be much closer than originally thought. The problem for Republicans is those experts still think the GOP will lose, just not in an old-fashioned blowout.The traditional factors seem to point in slightly different directions. Pointing toward a blowout is President Donald Trump’s job approval rating — long a predictor of a party’s performance in midterm elections. At the moment, Trump’s approval is 40.4% in the RealClearPolitics average of polls. In 2018, Trump’s first midterm, his approval rating was in the low 40s, and the Republican Party lost 40 House seats. More generally, defeat is usually in the cards when a president’s job approval dips below 50%.But what kind of defeat? In the 2022 midterm elections, President Joe Biden’s job approval was in the low 40s, and Democrats lost just nine House seats. To Biden’s dismay, that was enough to lose the House. Now, with today’s super-thin GOP margin in the House, even if Republicans were to lose, say, five seats, that would be enough to lose control.