They didn't repeal or replace Obamacare. They're six months late in reaching a budget agreement, necessary to (but not a guarantee of) a tax reform package. They desperately want to deliver tax cuts, but are wringing their hands over the impact on the deficit, while Democrats line up against any plan that gives the wealthy the lion's share of benefits. They managed to get a tentative deal to stabilize health insurance markets, but it was greeted with an immediate no-thanks from House conservatives. They haven't even gotten to infrastructure repair, one of the few bipartisan issues on the Hill. Several of their ranks' most respected members are swatting away tweet-slams from their own president, while others face primary challengers who are being boosted by the president's henchmen.

It's not that the party's over for congressional Republicans. It's that they never really had one. Despite the rare advantage of trifecta control – winning the White House as well as keeping control of both chambers of Congress – Republicans in Washington are struggling, with little to show for their first nine months of one-party rule and heading into an unexpectedly competitive 2018 campaign season. And while the minority Democrats are frequently decried as the "obstructionists" keeping the GOP from delivering on its campaign promises, it's often been the Republican Party itself that has been the culprit.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., figures his fragmented party has until next year to achieve tax reform without exhausting the patience, not to mention the electoral support, of the American people. As for the long-delayed budget, "if we can't get this done, we'll get run out of town," he says.

The onetime sharp critic of candidate Donald Trump has recently been chummy with the president, offering advice during golf games. Graham says he told Trump, "'you beat me. I think we need to be a team to the extent we can.' I think all Republicans are in it together, including me," Graham adds. "If we fail on taxes? That's the end of the Republican congressional majority. Our base will implode. Our party will disintegrate. And how can he be a successful president under that construct? It's not in his interest for us to fail."

It may be too soon to call the GOP majority a failure, but it's hardly been a ringing success, especially given the GOP's ambitious, promised agenda. When Democrats had a similar opportunity after President Barack Obama took office in 2009, they passed the Affordable Care Act and a sweeping Wall Street financial reform package. While those two items did not get signed into law until 2010, major groundwork was laid in the first year. Further, congressional Democrats in 2009 got the economic stimulus bill, a credit card holders bill of rights, a hate crimes bill and re-authorization of the Children's Health Insurance Program. Republicans this year, meanwhile, count as their major achievement the confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, and that was only achieved after the Senate majority broke tradition to change rules, refusing Democrats the opportunity to filibuster the nominee.

In the U.S. Capitol, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York practically skips down the halls, holding cheery-but-fiery news conferences where he comments on the troubles of the Trump administration or the strategy his party has to fell yet another GOP maneuver. Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, meanwhile, appears visibly annoyed, frustrated at his party's inability to get its agenda through and constantly managing the response from what is an unusually un-manageable White House. Two of the party's most respected and independent-minded women, Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska have been demonized by their party's far right for failing to okay a health care bill both felt was flawed. The Senate's Arizona team, Republicans John McCain and Jeff Flake, are both under assault from within their own ranks. McCain, fighting a serious brain tumor, has been verbally attacked by Trump after the veteran senator delivered a speech implicitly questioning Trump's leadership. "I'm being very nice. I'm being very, very nice. But at some point, I fight back, and it won't be pretty," Trump told a radio station this week, not detailing how he intended to retaliate against the ailing, decorated war hero. The famously sunny Flake, arguably one of the most popular senators among his colleagues, looks harassed these days, and not without reason: Trump's former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon has been boosting Kelli Ward in her primary challenge to Flake, who already is one of the more endangered of Senate GOP incumbents.

"We're on the same page. His agenda is our agenda," McConnell told reporters this week about his relationship with Trump. But he couldn't help but send yet another not-so-coded message to a president who seems to delight in taunting or slamming fellow Republicans. "We had an experience in 2010 and 2012, nominating candidates in primaries who couldn't win the general election," McConnell told reporters, ticking off past nominees in Delaware, Indiana, Nevada and Missouri. "What do they all have in common? They're in private life, and a Democrat is in the Senate. Our goal is to nominate people who can actually win in November," the leader added.

That's looking harder for Republicans, who already face the challenge of history (with the party in power in the White House almost always losing congressional seats in the first mid-term elections). A recent CNN poll had Democrats up by 16 points among registered voters in a generic ballot (in which Americans were asked whether they'd rather have a Democrat or a Republican representing their districts). That's up from a 2-point advantage Democrats had a year ago. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report this week moved 11 Republican-held seats into more vulnerable territory. And in state legislative races in recent months, Democrats have flipped six seats, including in districts where Trump won by double-digit margins, while the GOP has gotten just one (and that was a district with no Democratic candidate).

Trump's own approval ratings are dismal, in the upper 30's. An ideological divide in the party complicates re-election efforts for Republican candidates, who must choose between separating themselves from an unpopular president and alienating the hard-core Trump base. Speakers at a Values Voters Summit last week told attendees not to bother complaining about Democrats, but rather to turn their attention to "RINOs" (Republicans in Name Only) who do not deliver for Trump.

And that task is tough on the Hill, where "no" votes from GOP members determined to protect their own states or consciences also contribute to yet another failed Republican effort to pass legislation. And on top of that, a no vote could get Trump's twitter fingers typing a nasty retort at 6 am.

"I think the American people are fast losing patience with the bluster and bullying they see from the White House without any visible difference in their lives," says Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn.

Trump seems to have moved the bar a bit. After demanding that Congress pass Obamacare repeal and other matters with historic speed, the president is now suggesting it would be okay if they went into next year, just as Democrats did on major legislation.