Here are three factors that should worry Trump and the GOP:

1. The midterm results were actually a terrible leading indicator for him. Turns out that without Hillary atop the ticket, Midwest states like Wisconsin are tough for Trump, and Southern states with rising Hispanic populations are slowly growing more Democratic. Long term, the GOP should be freaking out about this.
2. Trump and the GOP face two years of public investigations, coming from three different and dangerous directions: Robert Mueller, the state of New York and Congress. Two years of probing hell await. 
3. The prolonged recovery is on borrowed time, and a recession could well hit at the worst possible time for Trump — in the thick of the presidential race. Live by the markets, die by the markets. 

Axios CEO Jim VandeHei and I go deeper on each of those: The midterms: 

• Trump has locked his party into a white-man strategy — using the pre-midterm rallies to amp up fears of immigrants and change. The strategy held the Senate for the GOP, since this year's battlegrounds were largely rural.
• But white men are shrinking, and will continue to, as a proportion of the electorate.
• Think of it this way: There's not a single demographic trend in America that benefits Republicans.
• We can see this in the tighter-than-expected results in Arizona, Florida, Georgia and Texas — all ominous signs for Trump's 2020 map. All have rising Latino populations, and are getting more Democrat-friendly. 
• Trump could easily lose Pennsylvania in 2020. He could easily lose Wisconsin. He could lose Michigan. It's clear now that Trump's wins in those vital states were based largely on Hillary Clinton voters staying away — Trump got fewer votes in Wisconsin than Mitt Romney had four years before. Absent one or both of those states, Trump's path becomes tenuous, at best. 
• Ohio held strong for Republicans in the midterms but that's offset by Virginia — Remember when the Old Dominion was the new Ohio" — which went from red to purple and is now undeniably blue. 

The investigations:

• Trump — who in January will face House Democrats with subpoena power, in addition to the multiple federal prosecutors targeting him — heads into this treacherous stretch with a thin staff and unconventional legal team. 
• The Wall Street Journal reported that federal prosecutors in Manhattan had prepared an 80-page indictment of former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen, before they accepted his guilty plea. That's a vivid but tiny indicator of how many legal fronts the president's orbit could face as cases wrap up.
• And that's just the New York branch of the investigation. Sources who deal regularly with special counsel Robert Mueller tell us he clearly is sitting on a massive trove of testimony and evidence, much of it potentially problematic for Trump. 
• As "Axios on HBO" scooped over the weekend, House Democrats are preparing to launch investigations on dozens of topics, potentially swamping a White House with rafts of vulnerabilities that have received scant scrutiny while Republicans controlled the Capitol. 

The economy: 

• When growth slows and the jobs picture darkens, Trump and the financial establishment will be left with few short-term tools for juicing the economy.
• The tax cuts have put the deficit on course for $1 trillion a year. 

Be smart: The gravest threat to the GOP has been — and remains — demographics. Every election, like clockwork, white dominance in voting shrinks by a few percentage points.

• Demographics don’t lie: The population of Hispanics and to a lesser extent Asians is rising, slowly but undeniably changing the politics of Texas, Georgia, Arizona, Colorado and other states.

Ask yourself this: Did Trump and the 2018 elections help or hurt Republicans with minorities?

• Then ask yourself this: Knowing more women vote in presidential elections than men, did Trump and the 2018 elections help or hurt Republicans with women?

Go deeper:

• What a midterms split would mean for 2020
• Trump's 2020 dreams
• Trump's 2020 woman problem

What's happening: Consumer groups are raising red flags about both the AT&T/Time Warner merger that was approved this summer (after the Justice Department tried to block it) and the Comcast/NBCUniversal merger that was approved in 2011 during the Obama administration.

• Last week, the American Cable Association asked the DOJ to investigate Comcast/NBCU for antitrust violations.
• The letter was made public Monday after a Friday report from The Information that Comcast/NBCU and AT&T may be working together to share content to marginalize rivals.
• The president then tweeted about the industry group's letter, asserting that "Comcast routinely violates antitrust laws."
• A DOJ spokesperson alluded to Axios Nov. 1 that AT&T's failure to come to a carriage agreement with Dish stems from its desire to steal Dish's Pay-TV subscribers, which would be an antitrust violation.

Be smart: "There is a strong basis for enforcing these laws regardless of the White House's statements, but those statements in no way help the DOJ do its job effectively," says Gene Kimmelman, president and CEO of Public Knowledge, a consumer protection advocacy group, and a former Justice Department antitrust staffer.

• Not everyone sees it that way. "I certainly was very happy to see the president focus on this issue," ACA President Matthew Polka tells Axios.

The big picture: These issues become even more convoluted as the DOJ faces a leadership crisis of its own.

• The resignation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions has some policymakers concerned that his acting replacement Matthew Whitaker, a Trump loyalist, will push the president's agenda — renewing fears that the DOJ's antitrust division isn't independent from the White House.

Between the lines: Many of the alleged anti-competitive behaviors are related to outlets that Trump has attacked.

1. NBC: The president has now vocally supported probing Comcast's behavior after its merger with NBCU in 2011. He's also attacked the network's broadcast licenses in the past, even though those are controlled by local affiliates and Trump can't take those away.
2. The Washington Post: The Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, who also owns Amazon. The president has attacked the Post for being "fake news" and has simultaneously said he is looking into Amazon's dominance and has reportedly gone after the company's U.S. postal rates.
3. CNN: CNN is owned by WarnerMedia (formerly called Time Warner), which was acquired by AT&T in June. The president vowed to break up AT&T's merger with Time Warner on the campaign trail. The DOJ tried to block the deal but lost the case in court. Trump criticized the deal's approval.

Democrats allege Trump impacted the DOJ's decision-making.

Reality check: Schiff’s comments carry weight because of his prominence in the Democratic party. But Schiff's committee doesn't have oversight authority on antitrust matters. Democrats in Congress have already requested documents related to communications between the White House and DOJ about the AT&T deal.

The bottom line: “The changes that take place here are going to be measured in years, not in months,” Andrew Schwartzman of the Communications and Technology Law Clinic at Georgetown Law said of the debate over antitrust law.

Go deeper: How Trump's media obsession could collide with regulation of it

Editor's note: This piece has been corrected to state that President Trump tweeted about a letter written by the American Cable Association — not a lawsuit.