President Donald Trump’s political team knows voters aren’t thrilled with the current state of affairs. But they are claiming that they can convince them that if the Democrats take back power in November, things will clearly get worse.
Top Trump advisers are plotting an election push focused on midterm messaging as a stark choice between the two parties’ platforms, rather than a direct referendum on Trump’s presidential success, according to four people involved in the private planning.
The strategy is driven by internal polls that show Republicans still hold a trust advantage over the Democratic Party on some key issues, even as Americans express anger at Trump and his performance overall.
Chief of Staff Susie Wiles and James Blair, who is leaving the White House to run Trump’s political operation, were among those outlining the planned approach at a meeting with close aides at the Waldorf Astoria hotel in Washington earlier this week.
“[Democrats] Want to make it a referendum, ‘Do you think everything’s right?'” one person in the room said, describing the overall message. “For us, it’s, do you want to go ahead and continue what’s going on and get the job done? Or go backwards to record inflation and high crime?”
Republicans are looking for ways to salvage their congressional majority despite growing headwinds, including an unpopular war in the Middle East and deep voter dissatisfaction with the cost of living.
That effort appeared to become more challenging Tuesday night after Virginia voters approved a redistricting referendum in November that could have given Democrats four more congressional seats. Republicans currently hold 217 seats in the House to Democrats’ 213, and the GOP has an independent caucus.
The Trump team’s plans appear to clearly acknowledge that the president has lost significant ground with voters in the past year, and as a result needs to put more energy into attacking Democrats. Trump’s low approval rating was not the subject of any extensive discussion at the Waldorf meeting, people in the room said.
Instead, advisers emphasized the need to better promote popular GOP policy achievements, while simultaneously portraying Democrats as obstructionists without an important agenda of their own.
“It’s all looking ahead and it’s not really about the White House,” said another person in the room. He described a key element of the approach as a warning to voters that if Democrats win control of the entirety of Congress, “it means gridlock, it means nothing. And we don’t believe that’s what the American people want.”
There are several areas where Trump advisers believe Democrats are particularly weak, including blanket opposition to GOP tax policies in last year’s “big, beautiful bill,” as well as the party’s record on issues like border security and crime.
Still, the advisers acknowledged that the main challenge remains to get individual Democrats to attack the most unpopular parts of the party’s overall brand, people in the room said. This is further complicated by the lack of a clear leader in the Democratic Party who can act as a single representation of its agenda.
The White House did not respond to a request for comment. In a sign of the heightened secrecy surrounding Trump’s political operation, attendees at Monday’s meeting were asked to sign non-disclosure agreements, people in the room said.
Blair confirmed the NDA policy, which was first reported by the Washington Post, told CNN they needed it “because we’re running an operation, not a social club.”
Among those attending the meeting: Chris LaCivita, a top GOP operative who helped advance Trump’s 2024 campaign; longtime Trump political adviser Jason Miller; and Trump campaign pollster Tony Fabrizio.
The session was the latest in a series of private presentations led by Blair and Wiles in recent months, as the White House prepares for a midterm cycle that Trump has portrayed as critical to the future of his presidency.
If Republicans lose their narrow majority in the House, Trump and GOP allies have warned that it would effectively block the administration’s agenda and expose it to multiple investigations — potentially including new impeachment efforts.
Trump advisers initially planned to put the president on the road nearly every week to bolster GOP candidates and promote his accomplishments, especially among low-turnout Trump voters who Republicans need in the November election.
But that initial blueprint was disrupted by Trump’s decision to attack Iran, setting off a war that has now dragged on for two months with no clear end in sight. The conflict has further weakened the political standing of Trump and Republicans, while pushing gas prices above $4 a gallon and deepening the party’s affordability challenges — which have reverberated through the broader economy.
Trump advisers have played down the impact of the war, even amid growing concern in many parts of the GOP, insisting the midterm races will be determined primarily by voters’ domestic concerns. And as Trump seeks to defuse the fight, his team’s election planning has picked up pace once again.
Trump announced earlier this month that Blair plans to temporarily leave the White House to lead operations outside the president’s deep pockets, which aides have described as critical to closely coordinating political activities across the party.
Alex Meyer, a former senior Trump campaign official who now runs the White House’s Office of Intergovernmental Affairs, is expected to leave the administration to help with outside efforts, two people familiar with the matter said.
The personnel move has renewed speculation among GOP operatives about how Trump advisers plan to deploy the roughly $350 million so far raked in by MAGA Inc., the president’s central super PAC.
MAGA Inc. Officials have yet to widely telegraph plans within the party about its strategy — including how it will promote House and Senate candidates and when that spending will begin.
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