WASHINGTON — President Trump will treat the November midterm election like a presidential campaign, his senior leadership team tells The Post — traveling like he’s on the ballot, flooding key races with cash and hammering home how his policies will help Americans with affordability.
“He’s going to campaign like it’s 2024,” Susie Wiles, Trump’s 2024 campaign co-chair turned chief of staff, told The Post.
The White House views Republican control of Congress as essential to maintain Trump’s power and agenda during his final two years in office.
Trump plans to campaign as if he’s personally on the ballot and enlist his heir apparent, Vice President JD Vance, as a regular presence on the road. Cabinet officials also will be dispatched to tout the administration’s record, senior administration officials told The Post.
The president’s first campaign-related trip of the year will be on Tuesday in Iowa, where he will deliver a speech on the economy and energy. Trump will continue to weigh in on congressional primaries — most recently backing Rep. Julia Letlow to challenge Sen. Bill Cassidy for the Louisiana Senate GOP primary.
Trump will also bring in big fundraising dollars for the party, a source said, which can funnel down to top competitive Senate races in states like Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia and elsewhere. Control of the House will hinge on three dozen swing congressional races, including seats in California and New York.
James Blair, Trump’s 2024 political director, argues that not only does the administration have its accomplishments to sell, they also have logistics on their side to defy the historical precedent that the party in power loses in midterms.
“Since 2024 Republicans have been outperforming Democrats in voter registration in every state in the country,” he told The Post. “That’s a huge deal and has never been the case before. The number one indicator of how people are going to vote is what party they’re registering with.”
His goal for 2026 is simple: “I want to keep the House and keep the Senate. Even by one. One is a victory.”
Trump will be heavily invested, not just in campaigning but in spending some of the nearly $300 million he has tucked away in his MAGA Inc war chest.
“He’s going to behave as though he is on the ballot. So that means some spending, that means a lot of travel, that means a lot of messaging help for candidates that need and want it,” Wiles said.
An essential element of the plan is for Trump to turn out the MAGA faithful who put him in the White House — reminding them of his unfinished attempt to build a “Golden Age” legacy and citing Democrats’ agitation to impeach him yet again as emotive calls to the ballot box.
“All Republicans are not Trump voters, but the Trump voters are those who turn out. Our job is to motivate them to vote for President Trump to finish the job,” Wiles noted.
Blair agreed it was a “core” focus.
“Converting presidential voters into midterm voters is a core underlying challenge, but if we can substantially increase their participation, it will help all Republicans across the country. It’s something that we will certainly be setting out to do – it’s something that the president is very good at,” he said.
As Trump celebrates his inauguration anniversary, his eye is turning toward his second year and cementing that legacy by keeping Republicans in power in Congress. A key component of that is selling his accomplishments to the American people, explaining how his work to lower mortgage and credit card rates, prescription drug prices and gas prices helped voters.
The president has indicated his frustration that those accomplishments are not getting as much credit as he would like.
“We didn’t do as good a job as the president would like us to do in what he calls PR, what I would call is just getting our message,” a senior administration official said.
Trump grumbled about the matter on Tuesday, when he spent more than 90 minutes in the White House briefing room to tout the work of his first year in office. Before he started speaking, aides passed out 31-page packets listing all that had been accomplished in the first year.
“We’ve done a much better job than we’re able to promote,” the president noted — candidly laying out the task ahead for himself and his staff.
But Wiles argues the administration has accomplished so many things, it makes the individual sell harder.
“The first year has been full every day, full of a new accomplishment, a new victory that helps the American people. Now we have to tell the story better,” she said.
“What I want to be sure we do in the second year is go a level deeper. We accomplished so much in the first year. It’s very tangible. There’s the big, beautiful bill. There’s something for everyone. But now we have to go a little deeper,” she said.
Trump was on that message in Davos, where he touted the American economy in front of business leaders.
“President Trump accomplished more in one year than many presidents did in eight,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Post. “The President delivered on every major campaign promise—securing the border, stopping Biden’s inflation crisis, signing the largest middle-class tax cuts in history, ending woke DEI nonsense, and restoring American strength on the world stage.”
But history shows the party in power typically loses control of Congress in the midterm election.
Currently, Democrats lead by four points in the generic congressional ballot, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. And that party is bullish on its chances, particularly when it comes to taking back the House.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) previewed the opposition’s battle cry in November, saying: “As Democrats, we will continue to make clear to the American people that you deserve better, and that we’re focused on driving down the high cost of living, fixing our broken health care system, and cleaning up corruption in the Congress, in the courts and in the White House, so we can actually deliver an America of the people.”
A former Biden White House official scoffed at the game plan to put Trump front and center.
“Best of luck!” said the longtime Democratic Party official and campaign aide.
“[Voters] are not going to let members [of Congress] slide on their price of electricity and groceries because Trump is pretending he is on the ballot.”
Republicans, however, are optimistic, particularly with the playbook they have in place, seeing it as a way to win over voters on the economy, which is their top issue.
“Six, seven months from now, when we’re really in the heated campaign season, we’re reasonably optimistic that the way people feel about the economy will be markedly improved, which will bolster the generic ballot and bolster our chances overall,” a senior administration official said.
The official also argued that Republicans “are really pretty unified, all in all, and all rowing in the same direction, whereas the Democrats are very much involved in factional infighting that we don’t really suffer from.”
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Trump hits the road to sell economic wins as Republicans brace for high-stakes midterm showdown
Facing a rough political climate as his party aims to hold its House and Senate majorities in this year’s midterm elections, President Donald Trump on Tuesday kicks off what the White House says will be weekly stops in states with key ballot box showdowns.
It’s part of the president’s push to showcase he’s working to combat rising prices, a top issue on the minds of Americans. And as the Trump administration reels amid two fatal shootings by federal agents in Minnesota this month of U.S. citizens protesting aggressive tactics to deport millions of undocumented migrants, it’s also an effort to pivot to the economy from immigration.
Trump’s first stop is Iowa, a one-time Midwestern battleground turned red-leaning state the president carried by double digits in 2024 where Republicans are now playing defense as they defend open Senate and gubernatorial seats and three competitive GOP-controlled House districts.
In suburban Des Moines, Trump will visit a local business, meet with lawmakers and deliver an address on the economy.
Showdown For The House: Democrats, Republicans Brace For High-stakes Midterm Clash
“The economy is good. It’s all good. Prices are coming way down, and we have a lot of very positive news,” Trump touted as he departed for Iowa.
And ahead of the trip, a White House official told Fox News Digital, “Inflation has cooled, economic growth is accelerating and real wages are up for American workers.”
Deep concerns over inflation boosted Trump and Republicans to sweeping victories at the ballot box in 2024 as they won back the White House and Senate and keep their House majority.
But Democrats say their decisive victories in November’s 2025 elections and their performances in special elections and other ballot box showdowns last year were fueled by their laser focus on affordability amid persistent inflation.
The president’s approval on the economy has consistently hovered in negative territory since March and has dragged down his overall approval ratings during his first year back in the White House.
Among the most recent national polls, a Wall Street Journal survey conducted earlier this month put Trump’s approval rating on the economy at 44%-54%, and he stood at 35%-56% in a Reuters/Ipsos poll in the field this past weekend.
Trump Vows He’ll Be On The Campaign Trail ‘A Lot’ This Year
“Donald Trump has tanked the economy for working families, making the cost-of-living an inescapable hell for millions of Americans. Everyday Americans are drowning under the weight of rising costs, flat wages, high unemployment and record layoffs — it’s no wonder they’re concerned about making ends meet,” Democratic National Committee Rapid Response Director Kendall Witmer argued in a statement.
But The Wall Street Journal poll indicated that congressional Republicans had an 11-point advantage over their Democratic rivals when it came to which party was better equipped to handle the economy.
Iowa is friendly ground for Trump, who convincingly won the state in his two presidential victories and one re-election defeat.
But a memo from Democratic National Committee (DNC) Deputy Communications Director Abhi Rahman claimed, “However hard Trump tries to explain away his failing economy, it’s abundantly clear that Americans aren’t buying it, especially in Iowa, where Trump’s policies are raising costs for Iowans, devastating Iowa’s agricultural economy, and destroying thousands of jobs that working Iowans rely on.”
The White House disagrees, with the official arguing that “Iowans are better off with President Trump and Republican leadership,” noting that gas prices in the state “ranked the second lowest in the nation.”
And pointing to the various tax cuts in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, Trump’s domestic legislative achievement so far in his second term, the official said, “Iowans could see their wages rise up to $61,000 over the next four years.”
Trump Cheers Steady Inflation Numbers As Affordability Fight Shapes 2026 Midterm Battle
The GOP, as it works to hold its congressional majorities, is dealing with a low propensity issue: MAGA voters who don’t always go to the polls when Trump’s name isn’t on the ballot.
But even though he’s not on the ballot this year, Trump pledged last week that he’ll be on the campaign trail “a lot” on behalf of fellow Republicans running in the midterms.
Trump made stops last month and earlier this month in the key battleground states of Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Michigan to highlight his accomplishments on the economy.
And the weekly trips advertised by the White House are a big change from Trump’s first term, when the president didn’t start his campaign travel blitz until Labor Day.
Republican National Committee Chair Joe Gruters emphasized in a Fox News Digital interview earlier this month that “the President of the United States is our secret weapon… He’s laser focused.”
“We got to make sure we turn our voters out, and we got to make sure that we have people energized. And there’s nobody that can energize our base more than President Trump,” Gruters added.
And the White House official said that the president “has always been most in his element when he’s interacting with everyday Americans, and the President’s domestic travel will allow him to most effectively underscore how this Administration has and continues to deliver economic prosperity for the American people.”
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Democrats are just fine with Trump hitting the road.
“Trump has historically low approval ratings because he has put America last, sold out working families to hand out favors to billionaires, and made life unaffordable. Hitting the road will only remind Americans of his failures and force GOP candidates to tie themselves to his cratering presidency,” DNC chair Ken Martin argued in a statement to Fox News Digital.
