Our most recent book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
In the White House Rose Garden last week, President Trump gathered some of the most politically endangered House Republicans for a dinner where he promised to make himself the face of the party’s uphill battle to keep control of Congress.
He was with them “100 percent — all the way until November,” Mr. Trump told the roughly two dozen lawmakers as they dined on prime aged beef burgers at tables adorned with bouquets of yellow roses. The president said he would travel to 35 key districts “to see if we can get everyone elected.”
The scene encapsulated the box that G.O.P. lawmakers have found themselves in as they stare down a bleak political environment.
They cannot afford to snub Mr. Trump, needing help from his enormous financial reserves and strong turnout from his base to win their campaigns. But they also do not want the election to be a referendum on the president, whose popularity is at a record low. And so far, he has shown little appetite for focusing on anyone’s political needs besides his own.
Two months before the midterm elections, Mr. Trump and the Republicans who have long tied their political fortunes to him appear to be at cross purposes as the party struggles to keep the House and Senate in G.O.P. hands.
As Republicans work to distance themselves from the president’s unpopular decisions, Mr. Trump is headlining a splashy convention in Dallas this week and has said that voters should “pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot.” As the candidates work to show they are focused on the concerns of everyday Americans, the president is spending much of his time in Washington focused on the construction of a White House ballroom, a 250-foot arch and a golf course on a public park alongside the Potomac River. And as they brace for the final costly weeks of their campaigns, he has yet to dole out hardly any of the nearly $1 billion he says his political action committee has raised.
President Donald Trump has a solution for his party’s midterm woes as Republicans struggle to match Democrats’ election enthusiasm and face major headwinds to keep control of Congress ‒ more Trump.
Enter “Trumpapalooza,” the party’s first-ever midterm convention and the president's clearest attempt yet to inject himself squarely at the center of the election and position himself as the party's savior.
Never mind that Trump’s low approval rating has been an anchor weighing on the GOP, with the potential to drag down midterm candidates. The president and his advisers have suggested he’s the only one who can bring the MAGA faithful to the polls in large enough numbers to avoid a midterm catastrophe for Republicans.
“This is a turnout race,” Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters said in an interview with USA TODAY. “We need the president front and center.”
That strategy will be on display over two days in Dallas beginning Sept. 9 as Trump gathers his party for the final post-Labor Day push toward the Nov. 3 election. Trump is set to attend both days and deliver the headline speech on the first night. The event – dubbed “Trumpapalooza” by Gruters – is part of the president’s bid to further nationalize the election and wrap it around his own political brand, a tactic some Republicans question.
The convention risks tying Republican candidates more tightly to Trump at a time when some in the party believe they need distance from the president amid polls showing voters disapprove of his performance on everything from tariffs to the Iran war and inflation.
“One of the problems that the party is having right now is the president’s approval rating is not good,” said longtime GOP strategist Charlie Black. “So the more candidates can get the voters to focus on them and the issues that they’re promoting, and less on the president, the better in most states and most districts.”
