It seemed like GOP leaders were hoping to let the Trump documents thing run its course and get him out of the picture, because he's had far too much (negative) influence on local races, resulting in moron / inexperienced candidates tanking in the polls.

But the problem is that the documents story is a slow trickle of worsening info, and it almost seems like the Democrats are goading the GOP into more openly backing/defending MAGA types. Problem is, that brand is deeply unpopular (as is their stance on Roe v. Wade) and the more they're pasted to it, the worse they're going to do. Thanks to the MAGA influence, they've doomed themselves with Oz and Herschel Walker, among others. Instead of a red wave, there's a very real possibility the GOP will lose the Senate split and may not even win the House.

Joe Biden's speech was low-key brilliant because he knew the knee-jerk response for the GOP would be condemnation and circling-the-wagons. The problem is that they're circling the wagons around a disaster they were trying to avoid. So now you have McConnell stuck in a weird position - he's publicly said that he wasn't happy with the quality of the GOP candidates (which is a roundabout way of saying he wants to move on from Tump) but now everyone under him is bitching up a storm on social media to defend "MAGA republicans."

The polls don't lie - not only is MAGA deeply unpopular with independents (and of course Democrats), a surprisingly large number of Republicans have started veering away as well. A recent poll showed that 30% of the GOP thought the FBI was justified in raiding Trump's property. That's actually an astonishingly high percentage of dissent for the GOP, especially going into midterm elections.