Contemporary off their staggering electoral losses this month, Republicans are urging President Donald Trump to begin hitting the marketing campaign path for them subsequent 12 months with management of Congress on the road.
And in an indication of their rising anxiousness over Democrats’ renewed enthusiasm, the requests for rallies have began rolling in.
Wisconsin GOP Chair Brian Schimming mentioned Trump’s workforce is “certainly aware” he needs to see the president go to the purple state subsequent 12 months, the place he gained by his thinnest margin in 2024 and his occasion is defending two aggressive Home seats and attempting to win statewide races. Schimming plans to reup his ask when visiting Washington this week. In Tennessee, the place Democrats are working to flip a Home seat in a particular election subsequent month, Republican Matt Van Epps’ marketing campaign requested the president maintain an in-person rally within the deep-red district he gained by 20 factors final 12 months. (Trump held a tele-rally for Van Epps final Thursday night time.) Rep. Derrick Van Orden has advised Trump he needs the president to marketing campaign with him in his western Wisconsin swing district subsequent 12 months.
Depressed turnout is a persistent drawback in non-presidential years. And Republicans acknowledge that Trump, whose approval rankings are underwater, could be a legal responsibility in addition to an asset.
However he stays a singular motivator for the MAGA base, in keeping with interviews with 11 Republican Celebration chairs, officers and operatives throughout the Rust and Solar Belt states. They mentioned Republicans should step up their voter-outreach efforts heading into the midterms, when Democrats want solely to internet three Home seats to regain management of the decrease chamber. They usually’re trying to Trump to be their triple risk — along with his trademark rallies, endorsements and deep marketing campaign coffers.
Now, even because the GOP descends into in-fighting over the discharge of information related to the late convicted intercourse offender Jeffrey Epstein and state-level Republicans all through the nation buck Trump’s redistricting push, his occasion is clamoring for ever extra of the president.
“Trump is the ace in the hole,” mentioned Tom Eddy, the Republican chair in Erie County, Pa., a presidential bellwether Trump gained in 2016 and 2024, however the place Democrats swept key native races earlier this month. “It’s a matter of which party is more motivated. And right now, obviously, the Democrats are.”
A Republican strategist who works on North Carolina races, granted anonymity to talk candidly, painted a dire portrait of the occasion’s stakes as Democrat Roy Cooper makes the occasion’s finest shot at flipping a Senate seat subsequent 12 months.
“Any Republican not preparing for a turnout challenge in 2026 is whistling by the graveyard,” the strategist mentioned. “If Trump is on the ballot, Republican turnout is strong. And if he’s not, it craters. It collapses. There’s an entire group of people who are Trump voters, but Trump alone. There seems to be no way to get them to the ballot.”
James Blair, Trump’s prime political director, mentioned on a post-election episode of POLITICO’s “The Conversation” that the president can be “far more involved in the midterms.” Trump has already endorsed the vast majority of Home incumbents and throughout many Senate races, although he’s but to clear the sector in Texas, Georgia and New Hampshire, the place fierce primaries are underway. Two of his prime political operatives — Trump 2024 co-campaign supervisor Chris LaCivita and pollster Tony Fabrizio — are advising campaigns throughout the nation.
“With a lot of campaigning next year, with a lot of resources in the right districts for the right candidates,” Republicans’ turnout woes are “an overcomeable problem,” Blair mentioned on “The Conversation.”
Blair cautioned that victory shouldn’t be totally Trump’s accountability, including, “The president will campaign a lot to get people out” however “candidates still have to connect with these voters, too.”
Blair, LaCivita and a White Home spokesperson didn’t reply to requests for remark for this story.
Republicans brushed apart Trump’s current hands-off strategy, noting the occasion misplaced in blue-leaning states the place the president is unpopular. However they noticed warning indicators within the margins. Turnout information reveals Republicans misplaced floor within the locations that voted most for Trump final 12 months, suggesting his voters had been much less more likely to forged ballots exterior of a presidential 12 months.
Throughout Virginia, in precincts the place Trump gained not less than 80 p.c of the vote in 2024, turnout this 12 months fell under 70 p.c of final 12 months’s ranges, in keeping with a POLITICO breakdown of the outcomes. Statewide, that determine was 77 p.c.
In southwest Virginia’s Buchanan County, the place Trump gained greater than 85 p.c of the vote, turnout for the gubernatorial election was lower than 60 p.c of the prior 12 months. Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger obtained about 73 p.c of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ vote whole whereas GOP Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears acquired simply 57 p.c of the votes Trump had obtained.
Republicans shrugged off Earle-Sears as a weak candidate and attributed the outcomes to typical swings towards the opposition occasion in off-year elections. However as Trump himself has urged, it signifies Republicans have but to determine how one can replicate his coalition when he’s not on the poll.
Republican officers and operatives say Trump continues to be the “biggest base motivator” they’ve — a nod to his singularity and to the uncertainty of who else within the GOP has the gravitas to command his MAGA motion.
“We’ve got to make it clear what the stakes of it are — because they don’t want to go back to another Joe Biden,” Schimming mentioned, acknowledging the occasion’s problem in reaching irregular voters.
Republicans throughout battleground states are working to remind their voters of financial ache below the Biden administration — and warning that Democratic management of even one chamber of Congress may result in investigations that would distract from, if not derail, Trump’s agenda.
They’re additionally pushing early voting as a approach to attain lower-propensity voters and to maintain them engaged exterior presidential cycles, at the same time as Trump tries to finish the follow.
Republicans acknowledge some candidates would profit from distancing themselves from the president on unpopular insurance policies, like reducing well being care advantages and imposing tariffs, in a midterm election that may function a referendum on his second time period. Their considerations hark again to 2018, when Democrats picked up 40 Home seats in a repudiation of Trump’s first time period.
After Democrats rode affordability messaging to wins in final week’s elections, Republicans mentioned they should keep targeted on reducing prices. To that finish, the White Home specified by a Friday memo how the administration is working to decrease costs.
Some Republicans additionally mentioned Trump must focus much less on his grievances, like placing hundreds of thousands of {dollars} from his political operation into primarying GOP Rep. Thomas Massie in a protected seat in Kentucky over the lawmaker’s opposition to Republicans’ megalaw and his push to launch the Justice Division information on Epstein.
“Don’t waste your time going after Thomas Massie,” mentioned Todd Gillman, a Republican Celebration district chair in Michigan, the place the GOP is trying to snag the Senate seat being left open by retiring Democrat Gary Peters, maintain the Home seat Rep. John James is leaving to run for governor and wrest again management of statewide places of work.
As a substitute, he mentioned, “come to Michigan and fight for John James’ seat so we don’t lose it.”
Jessica Piper, Elena Schneider, Andrew Howard, Sam Benson and Liz Crampton contributed to this report.
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