For Republicans facing a tough election year, holding the Senate is their easiest path to keeping some power in Congress. But President Donald Trump is raising their degree of difficulty.
In battleground states, the president has chased out one proven Republican incumbent and refused to endorse another now locked in a bruising primary. His assault on Iran has raised energy prices and economic volatility as voters say they’re overwhelmingly worried about the cost of living. And as Republicans promote last year’s tax bill as an answer to those concerns, Trump is increasingly focused overseas.
While Republicans are favored to hold the Senate, Trump is making some of them worried.
“We had 1,100 calls last week on the war, and almost 1,100 of them were against it,” said Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.). “Those are big numbers and you have to be mindful of that leading up to the election.”
If the political tide gets stronger, some Republicans warn they could be locked out of power in Congress next year, given widespread expectations that Democrats will take control of the House.
The president’s party almost always faces headwinds in midterm elections, but Tillis illustrates how Trump made the odds even tougher. He dropped his reelection campaign last year amid attacks from the president, removing a tested incumbent and opening the door for Democrats.
“Thom I think would have won reelection relatively comfortably,” Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), another Republican scorned by Trump, said Tuesday at a Bloomberg Government event.
Cassidy added that if Trump had supported GOP Sen. John Cornyn three months ago in a brutal Texas primary, he could have averted an expensive, ongoing brawl.
“We could have saved $70 million, which we could have used to have used to do better in other states,” Cassidy said. “But he’s the president.”
Trump also endorsed a Republican challenger against Cassidy after the senator voted to convict the president in his 2021 impeachment trial.
Tillis said the political environment increasingly looks like the ones that preceded electoral waves in 2010 (for Republicans) and 2018 (for Democrats, during Trump’s first term), citing robust Democratic turnout in primaries.
Other Republicans hope the president focuses on prices, even as he has often emphasized other issues and dismissed “affordability.”
“People vote with their pocketbooks,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W. Va.). “So I think the affordability question is very valid and something we need to talk about, and I think he is beginning to address it.”
Democrats, however, say Trump has been out of touch with his military ventures, lavish gatherings at Mar-a-Lago, and golf outings.
“He’s tone deaf,” said Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.).
Trump’s approval rating is deeply negative according to public polling, including on the economy. His tariffs have driven criticism that he’s increased costs for Americans, and rising gas prices are compounding the worry.
Despite the warnings, independent analysts say Republicans are still favored to hold the Senate because most of this year’s races are in conservative states out of reach for Democrats. But they also say recent events are improving Democratic chances.
“Does Trump make the environment so bad for Republicans that they somehow kick away the Senate? That’s to me the big question for the next six months,” said Kyle Kondik, a nonpartisan election analyst at the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
Democrats could have a strong year overall and still fall short of a Senate majority.
They need to win tough races in Georgia and Michigan just to hold their existing seats. Then they’re aiming to flip battleground states Maine and North Carolina. If they manage that, they still need to add two more seats from a slate of Trump-friendly states including Alaska, Ohio, Iowa, Montana, Nebraska, and Texas.
“Democrats have momentum,” said Jessica Taylor, of the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, but “the math is still very difficult for them.”
Republicans argue the tax cuts they passed last year will address cost-of-living concerns and will be felt as filing season unfolds in the coming weeks.
“We have attacked the issue of affordability with the working family tax cut,” said Sen. Jon Husted (R-Ohio), one Republican facing a high-stakes reelection.
He and others tout rising tax refunds. The average refund increased by $360, or 10.6%, through the end of February, according to IRS data compared to the same time last year.
Asked about the war, Husted said “it should be brief and successful — the emphasis on brief.”
When Trump visited Ohio and Kentucky Wednesday to promote his economic agenda, however, much of his remarks centered on the war.
“I figured we’d be hit a little bit, but probably less than I thought and we’ll be back on track in a pretty short while,” he said of the market impact.
He promoted his tax cuts for overtime and tips, and investments from businesses, warning that Democrats will raise taxes if they gain power.
“They want to get back in office in the midterms, and you can’t let ‘em,” he said.
To that end, Republicans in Washington are pleading with Trump to endorse Cornyn in Texas, arguing his seat could be at risk if he loses the GOP primary to state Attorney General Ken Paxton. But Trump this week demanded the Senate first approve a bill requiring proof of citizenship to vote, leaving Cornyn hanging on a proposal that has no immediate path to approval.
“It’s probably not a linkage that is anybody’s best interest,” said Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.).
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who previously led the GOP’s Senate campaign arm, predicted worries would eventually diminish.
“This is going to sort itself out,” Daines said. “What’s happening right now is a reset in the Middle East that’s going to be incredibly beneficial in terms of driving energy prices down in the short and the long term.”
Daines, however, dropped his own reelection bid this month.
Lillianna Byington in Washington and Victoria Knight in Washington also contributed to this story.
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