The Republicans are facing a monumental task as they try to keep control of Congress – and as Donald Trump places himself squarely at the forefront of the party’s election campaign. The scale of the challenge was especially clear this week, when Trump made a trademark almost two-hour speech at the party’s mid-term convention in Dallas.
Yet, while Trump’s approval ratings may be sagging – now consistently below 40 per cent – given his enviable record of defying political gravity, he may still be the best hope Republicans have for keeping control of the House of Representatives and Senate. (At least, that’s what the Trump White House is trying to sell: that the more voters see of the President, the more votes Republicans will attract.)
The President’s war with Iran is deeply unpopular – having sent oil prices back above $100 a barrel again – and his love of tariffs is fuelling higher inflation, hurting voters’ wallets, but in public at least, few Republican lawmakers dare break with him.
In all ways that really matter, today’s Republican Party is Donald Trump. Republicans on the ballot this November are defined by him. At the convention in Dallas, his image was plastered all over the convention hall, just as it is on key federal buildings across Washington, DC.
Republicans running for office are in a bind – many will feel they can’t win without him, might not win with him, but what other options do they have? The former reality TV star’s takeover of their party is so complete that it’s increasingly impossible for candidates to separate themselves from his own brand, even if they want to.
Then there’s the money. The President is a phenomenal fundraiser and has announced that he’ll crack open his record $1bn campaign war chest and spend up to $500m from his political action committees. Even as vulnerable Republicans across America mutter that they haven’t seen the President’s latest AI slop content – or insist he’s joking about renaming the state of New Mexico “New America” – they all want his cash.
That money will only be doled out if Republican candidates keep on the right side of the famously touchy and unforgiving President. Trump never seems to forget or forgive a slight – and he’ll use his money to fund a primary opponent in the next election cycle if you step out of line now. Fear is a powerful weapon, which Trump wields expertly.
An attendee at the second day of the Republican mid-term convention in Dallas on 10 September (Photo: Blake Fagan/AFP)Vulnerable Maine Senator Susan Collins skipped this week’s Dallas “Trumpapalooza” mid-term convention, believing that staying away improves her chances of winning. Yet Republicans in districts across America are staying loyal in public, still seeing Trump as an asset. Texas Senator John Cornyn has predicted the mid-terms will be a “disaster” for the GOP – but is speaking bluntly only after he was beaten by a Trump-backed candidate in a primary earlier this year.
Republicans are also hoping that the unpopularity of the Democrats will help them hold back the tide come November. The Democrats talk a lot about the “affordability crisis” facing voters, but they’re short on solutions – other than being against Trump’s tariffs and his war with Iran.
A recent poll found just 37 per cent of those surveyed felt the Democrats had a “better plan, policy or approach to the US economy,” while 36 per cent said the Republicans did.
Meanwhile, the memory of Joe Biden’s disastrous debate performance and the feeble end to his presidency still looms large in voters’ minds. A recent Pew Research Centre survey found that around 59 per cent of those surveyed held an unfavourable view of the party.
Past comments from some progressive candidates about defunding the police, supporting open borders and abolishing prisons are also being dredged up, and used to try to define the entire Democratic Party. Moderate Democrats in competitive districts are having to field questions about whether they approve of old comments from their more progressive colleagues. And Trump is piling on, warning in Texas this week that if the Democrats win in November, Congress will be controlled by a “communist caucus.”
Scaring voters into turning out because the alternative is communism seems to be a core strategy.
Despite his flagging approval numbers, Donald Trump remains a big draw for many Republican voters (Photo by Kent Nishimura/AFP)At the convention, Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Scott Bessent, warned delegates: “The radical left is relentless in their pursuit to remake America in the image of every socialist hellscape of the last century.”
Where does that leave those in Trump’s party looking to their own political survival?
Some are pinning their hopes on the aggressive gerrymandering effort dreamed up by Trump’s White House, aimed at saving their slim majority in the House of Representatives.
The idea was to protect candidates from the unfavourable mid-term environment by creating more safe Republican seats. Republicans have redrawn the boundaries of congressional districts across the country and will probably net at least six more seats as a result. But some of the seats designed to be safe are now looking competitive thanks to Trump’s unpopularity. Plus, Democrats played their own redistricting game – they only require a net gain of three seats to retake the House.
Republicans have little choice but to tie themselves to their all-powerful President, as they need both his election war chest and the votes of his Maga faithful. As the veteran Republican strategist Karl Rove wrote this week, the White House strategy of making the mid-term elections all about Trump by “puffing up” his “accomplishments” of the last eighteen months is “audacious”. But Republicans are now all in on the high-wire act, and can only pray that it works.
They have no real alternative.
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