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The G.O.P. and corporate America, longtime allies, are showing signs of a breakup — which recent polls suggest will likely play out with a Republican House.The DealBook newsletter delves into a single topic or theme every weekend, providing reporting and analysis that offer a better understanding of an important issue in business. If you don’t already receive the daily newsletter, sign up here.Ten days ago, with the midterm elections fast approaching, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the flame-throwing, far-right Republican congresswoman from Georgia, was a guest on Steve Bannon’s podcast. With the Republicans favored to take control of the House of Representatives, Bannon popped the question that has been much on the minds of corporate executives:“Do corporations have anything to fear from a populist House, ma’am?” he asked.Ms. Greene cracked a steely smile. After Jan. 6, she said, “all the big corporations stopped donating to a whole bunch of my Republican colleagues.” She continued, “I want you to know — and I want them to know — that that’s not going to be forgotten.” She added, “There is [sic] going to be investigations.” Payback time, in other words.The G.O.P. and big business, happily married for so long, are in the midst of an ugly divorce — which recent polls indicate is likely to play out in a Republican-led House. It’s not just that dozens of companies pulled back from donating to the Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election (a pullback, to be sure, that didn’t last very long).It’s also that, at least since 2008, when the gay marriage fight spurred a number of chief executives to speak out, companies have been taking stands on issues that are usually associated with Democrats. Just in the past few years, many large corporations have publicly opposed voting laws passed by Republicans, supported Black Lives Matter, criticized the Supreme Court abortion ruling and embraced the environmental, social and governance movement known as E.S.G.Combine that with the kind of MAGA-oriented Republicans who have been winning recent elections — lawmakers who don’t rely on corporate donations and consider big companies to be part of the “woke” universe — and you can just picture the brutal hearings the next two years could bring. “It will be a much more aggressive Republican majority,” said Dan Clifton, the policy director of Strategas, a big asset management and institutional research firm.But it’s more complicated than MAGA congressmen beating up woke corporations. Kevin McCarthy, who is in line to be the new speaker of the House if the Republicans are in the majority, has been openly dismissive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ever since the chamber backed 23 House Democrats in the 2020 election. Just this week, Axios reported that Mr. McCarthy told the chamber’s board members that he would not work with the business lobby unless it fired its C.E.O., Suzanne Clark, and replaced the leadership team. (The chamber told Axios that Ms. Clark has the executive committee’s “complete support.”)The State of the 2022 Midterm ElectionsElection Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.Biden’s Speech: In a prime-time address, President Biden denounced Republicans who deny the legitimacy of elections, warning that the country’s democratic traditions are on the line.State Supreme Court Races: The traditionally overlooked contests have emerged this year as crucial battlefields in the struggle over the course of American democracy.Democrats’ Mounting Anxiety: Top Democratic officials are openly second-guessing their party’s pitch and tactics, saying Democrats have failed to unite around one central message.Social Security and Medicare: Republicans, eyeing a midterms victory, are floating changes to the safety net programs. Democrats have seized on the proposals to galvanize voters.Even so, the chamber’s activity seems very much aligned with certain longstanding G.O.P. positions. In the last four months, the chamber has sued the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Federal Trade Commission and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. The lawsuits essentially argue that with the Democrats in charge, the agencies have been overzealous. As the minority party these past two years, Republicans have often made this complaint about the regulatory agencies. If they become the majority, they will be able to drive this home much more forcefully with investigations and hearings.So what will big business be facing if the Republicans take the House?Republican strategists say that hearings attacking “woke” corporations are inevitable, and have pointed to a handful of companies that are likely to be asked to testify at such hearings. Disney, for instance. When the company’s C.E.O., Bob Chapek, criticized the Florida law that limits what teachers can say to young students about gender and sexuality — and when Gov. Ron DeSantis responded by stripping the company of a special tax district — the publicity put Disney squarely in the sights of Republican House members.Delta Air Lines, based in Atlanta, could also be called to testify. Why? Because Delta’s chief executive, Ed Bastian, described Georgia’s 2021 voting rights bill — which critics said would make it more difficult for minorities to vote — as “unacceptable” and “based on a lie.”Nineteen Republican attorneys general are investigating the six largest U.S. banks for their climate change policies — which Republicans will no doubt pick up on. “Financial companies that are pushing for lesser use of fossil fuels will come under pressure,” said Mr. Clifton.But the company most likely to be scrutinized, Republican strategists say, is BlackRock, the giant asset manager, and its chief executive, Larry Fink. Just this week, BlackRock disclosed more details about its efforts to give investors direct access to vote their shares, in part as an answer to critics who believe the firm has too much influence. In his annual letters to C.E.O.s, Mr. Fink has forcefully made the case that climate-based goals and E.S.G. more generally are important both for society and for corporate bottom lines. Shareholders, he wrote in his most recent letter, “need to know where we stand on the societal issues intrinsic to our companies’ long-term success.”One person who has made the opposite case — that companies should stick to making money and abandon E.S.G. and politics — is the investor Vivek Ramaswamy, whose book “Woke Inc.: Inside Corporate America’s Social Justice Scam,” has been highly influential in Republican circles. Last spring, for instance, Mr. Ramaswamy spoke at the House Republican retreat in Florida. “What I had to say was very well received,” he told me.Then there are areas where Republicans are likely to aid companies, because their positions are so in synch with corporate goals. Mr. Clifton told me the Republicans will push hard for more energy infrastructure — like pipelines from Canada — which of course is something energy companies want.And Republicans and big business both want fewer regulations. With Republicans in charge, congressional committees will be questioning the actions of Democratic agency heads. Has the National Labor Relations Board become too pro-union, especially in its dealings with Amazon? Where is the S.E.C.’s authority to issue a proposed rule for climate-related disclosure? Is the C.F.P.B. pursuing a “radical and highly politicized agenda unbounded by statutory limits,” as a group of Republican senators described the agency in a strongly worded letter to its director, Rohit Chopra, last September? Is the F.T.C. chair, Lina Kahn, moving the agency too far to the left?As for the Environmental Protection Agency, long a Republican target, the trade publication E&E News predicts “multiple hourslong hearings,” “letters demanding documents from every corner of the agency” and “even subpoenas for text messages.”The big question is this: With a Democrat in the White House for at least another two years, and the possibility that the Senate will remain in Democratic hands, how much change can the Republicans actually bring about? Every strategist I spoke to had the same answer: probably not much.“They are going to want to show voters that the House is being run differently,” said Ron Bonjean, the co-founder of ROKK, a public affairs firm. “And score political points.” Neil Bradley, the chief policy officer for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, put it this way: “I think a lot of what companies are trying to grapple with is differentiating the political rhetoric from a policy agenda.”One area where Republicans could help get legislation passed is in regulation of Big Tech. Both Democrats and Republicans regularly criticize the big tech and social media companies, though for different reasons. Democrats are primarily concerned with antitrust issues while Republicans believe that the big social media companies are censoring conservative speech. During the current Congress, both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees passed bipartisan antitrust bills, though neither made it to the House or Senate floor. It may not be their preferred solution, but Mr. Clifton and others say they think Republicans hoping to punish the tech companies could sign onto the antitrust bills that the Democrats and the administration have been pushing. Here’s the most dizzying scenario of all. Suppose the Democrats keep the Senate and the Republicans take the House. On one day, a company like Chevron or a C.E.O. like Mr. Fink could be aggressively questioned by a Senate committee about why they are not pushing harder on climate change. Then the next day, the same group could be called before a House committee and questioned every bit as aggressively about why they are wasting shareholder money on climate change initiatives.What business wants most of all — what it always wants — is stability and predictability. Given the breakup between Republicans and business, if the Republicans take the House, that’s the one thing companies can be sure they won’t have.What do you think? Let us know: dealbook@nytimes.com. 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