Election Night has become the cable news equivalent of a championship game, complete with countdown clocks and crowded panels. For Fox News, however, the coming midterms could deliver less celebration than a punishing postgame reckoning.

The network spent more than a decade relying on Donald Trump to drive attention, loyalty and outrage. Now, Trump weary viewers and disaffected supporters appear less eager to watch their preferred political team lose, leaving Fox squeezed by the audience it cultivated.

Rupert Murdoch, the 95 year old Fox patriarch, has long approached the network pragmatically, serving its audience the conservative programming it wants. But Trump’s routine appears to have worn thin for millions who previously supported him, pushing Fox toward a perilous phase.

Fox briefly created distance from Trump immediately after the 2020 election. When MAGA loyalists responded by tuning out, the network raced back, alarmed that frustrated Trump supporters might migrate to conservative competitors such as Newsmax.

That panic helped cement a relationship in which the demands of Trump’s most devoted supporters shaped Fox’s choices. The immediate threat from Newsmax proved short lived, but Fox personalities’ promotion of Trump’s 2020 election lies eventually led to a nearly $800 million settlement with Dominion Voting Systems.

Since then, the cable news leader has generally tried to remain in Trump’s good graces. That favorable treatment included a parade of former Fox personalities moving into and out of his administration, further blurring the already hazy boundary between network and political operation.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth and U.S. Attorney for D.C. Jeanine Pirro are among more than two dozen Fox personalities selected by Trump. Former White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also signed a contributor deal with Fox shortly after leaving that position.

Trump, predictably, has not treated favorable coverage as sufficient. As his poll numbers have declined, he has attacked Fox, reinforcing the familiar reality that anything short of complete loyalty can trigger another public eruption from the president.

The viewers are also sending a message. Fox’s daily audience in October fell 27% from the previous year, producing its worst monthly performance in almost three years, while its primetime opinion programs experienced a corresponding decline.

MS NOW and CNN posted increases compared with the previous year as the election approached, although Fox continued to lead both networks by a comfortable margin. Fox is bruised, in other words, but hardly starting from a position of weakness.

The network’s problems are unfolding amid broader pressure on the cable news industry. Changing media habits and the decision by millions of households to cut cable service have reduced distribution, while CNN and MS NOW are navigating major changes of their own.

CNN is preparing for changes and cuts under new owner Skydance. MS NOW, meanwhile, is adjusting to its new name and operating separately from NBC News, making Fox’s predicament part of an unsettled environment rather than an isolated ratings story.

Fox has survived political transitions before and recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. It arguably wielded its greatest influence with Democrats in power, particularly during the Obama years, when it prospered by presenting itself as the opposition’s voice.

Still, its access to Trump remains extraordinary. He obsessively watches Fox even while complaining about it, and the network helped turn him into a political force before his 2016 campaign, only to discover that it could no longer control what it had helped create.

Fox and the Republican Party now face similar uncertainty about what comes after Trump loosens his grip on a crucial segment of their shared audience. His suggestions about defying the 22nd Amendment do not erase the eventual challenge facing cable news once he leaves the White House.

Every late night Truth Social attack accusing Fox of betrayal threatens its connection to MAGA viewers. Fox and Murdoch chose to hitch the network to Trump after conservatives retreated from their denunciations following the Jan. 6 riot, and that decision may have prevented disaster in 2021.

If viewers do not return after the midterms, Fox will again have to prove its adaptability. Otherwise, the network and Trump risk resembling the longtime friends in “Thelma and Louise,” clinging together until they sail straight off the cliff.

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