Former Sen. Jeff Flake: The Great GOP Migration Away from MAGA Has Begun

By former AZ Senator Jeff Flake.

The midterms promise growing defections from disastrous MAGA orthodoxy.

In politics, migrations rarely happen all at once. They start quietly — one or two members of a herd moving toward safer ground while the rest pretend not to notice. But once the wind really changes, the movement becomes unmistakable.

I believe that a migration has begun within the Republican Party.

The first signs are visible. A few Republican members of Congress — some of them proud standard-bearers of the MAGA movement — have begun to distance themselves from Trump.

• Senators are resisting his dangerous push to end the filibuster.
• Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul has taken a stand against the president’s tariffs.
• Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s recent break with President Trump on several issues may not last, but even a temporary defection signals to others that it can be done.

It gives cover to those who have privately questioned the direction of the party but have been unwilling to say so aloud.

The political climate that once rewarded absolute loyalty to the president is shifting. The Democratic landslide in Tuesday’s off-year elections will only add momentum to that.

The midterms, now less than a year away, clearly favor the Democrats — particularly in the House, where they are poised to take the majority.

And if that happens, it will not be because Democrats have suddenly found the perfect message. It will be because the president’s economic policies are fundamentally misaligned with both conservative principles and economic reality.

Take tariffs. There is no mystery here: Tariffs are taxes. They are inflationary by definition, raising costs for consumers and businesses alike. This should not be controversial for a party that once prided itself on understanding basic market economics. Yet the GOP has embraced protectionism and industrial policy with a fervor that would make 1970s Democrats blush.

The predictable result: Reciprocal tariffs are imposed. Prices rise. Supply chains adjust in ways that hurt American workers in the long run. None of this is theoretical; it’s the same cycle we saw a century ago when protectionism deepened the Great Depression. Economies built on resentment rather than competition always find themselves poorer.

So Republicans running in midterm races are going to face a choice. They can cling, as many Democrats did in 2024, to an economic message that ignores reality. Or they can begin the slow, necessary work of reclaiming the party of free markets and global engagement.

The Republicans most likely to lead this migration are those senators not on the ballot in 2026. They have time, insulation and perhaps a touch of perspective. Having survived the whiplash of past election cycles, they know that public opinion is cyclic, but reputations endure. Most of them entered politics believing that fiscal discipline and internationalism were Republican virtues, not heresies. They want to return the Senate to the deliberative body it once was.

There will, of course, be holdouts. But Trump’s imitators have not fared well. Mimicry is not a strategy. My home state of Arizona, with a Democratic governor and two Democratic senators, should be instructive. Even with the president on the ballot and with his base fully engaged, his acolytes have come up short in this historically red state.

Without the president on the ballot, candidates who rely on grievance and spectacle will find it even harder to win statewide races. What we’re witnessing, then, is not merely a tactical adjustment but the early stages of a re-realignment. Politics abhors a vacuum, and as the president’s hold weakens, space will open for traditional conservatives — those who still believe in limited government, open markets and an America that leads through example rather than intimidation.

Some will frame this as betrayal. It’s not. It’s survival. The GOP cannot sustain itself indefinitely as a movement defined by isolationism abroad and populism at home. Those instincts may thrill a rally crowd, but they’re corrosive to governing. Eventually, voters tire of performative anger and want competence.

That’s why the coming migration matters. It represents not a rebellion, but a return to the idea that leadership is about persuasion, not punishment; that conservatism is about stewardship, not suspicion; that our prosperity and security are tied to the prosperity and security of others.

The path back won’t be easy. The base that rewards purity tests still wields real power in primaries. But vulnerable Republicans will come to see that silence is more costly than dissent. Each small act of independence, each senator or representative who refuses to parrot the latest talking point, nudges the herd toward new ground.

The migration won’t be a stampede. It will unfold vote by vote, district by district. Some will move out of conviction, others out of political necessity. Motives will vary, but the movement is happening.

And in the end, after enough of the herd has made the journey, the GOP will look up and find itself in a new, old place — one rooted in optimism, free trade and the conviction that America leads best when it engages rather than retreats.