Why an Unpopular Trump Is Republicans’ Only Bet to Keep Congress

As the autumn midterms approach, Republicans are tied to an unpopular President Donald Trump — and are leaning into him anyway. Trump has refashioned the Republican Party into a tribute to himself, just as he branded his towers and reshaped the scenery of Washington, DC, leaving the party with what it sees as one path to keeping its congressional majorities.

Reviving affection among Mr Trump’s core faithful — and reminding them why they dread or loathe Democrats — may offer the party’s strongest chance of retaining congressional control and rescuing the MAGA loyalists Mr Trump backed instead of more winnable Republicans.

Why Trump’s midterm convention went to Texas, not a swing state

The shrinking payoff of Mr Trump’s self-centered politics shows nowhere more clearly than in his decision to stage his midterm convention away from any classic swing battleground, in Texas, which he carried in 2024 by almost 14 points.

His effort to help Ken Paxton, the state’s attorney-general, strip the Republican nomination from Senator John Cornyn has endangered what should have been a secure seat. In the judgment of Republican senators, merely energetic endorsement plus millions of dollars from Mr Trump might rescue Mr Paxton’s campaign. That arrangement suits Mr Trump perfectly.

Thus the convention, designed to energize believers instead of converting sceptics, delivered the worship Mr Trump craves. He perhaps did not pack the arena, yet the crowd chuckled at his familiar jokes and tangents and applauded his self-congratulation. Speaker after speaker hailed him repeatedly as the greatest president in history. “He’s delivered more for this country than anyone before,” a thankful Mr Paxton declared when his moment at the lectern arrived.

The apocalyptic pitch to the base

Never have Mr Trump’s accomplishments been portrayed as more magnificent or America as more triumphant. Never has the threat from the opposition been depicted as more apocalyptic.

One speaker after another cautioned that any Democratic advance would mean ending prisons, admitting men to women’s athletics and restrooms, and hiking working-class taxes to fund health care for unauthorized immigrants invited across the border. How they could achieve that under a Republican White House went unexplained.

But the radicalism of Democratic Socialist contenders and of Hasan Piker, a streamer who has appeared alongside Democrats, has handed Republicans vivid fresh evidence to portray this as a contest of “common sense and Communism, between America-loving patriots and hate-America extremists”, as Tom Emmer, the House majority whip, put it.

Scores of Republican contenders in competitive contests avoided what the party chairman dubbed the “Trumpapalooza”. Some might manage to convince sufficient voters that they represent a separate kind of Republican, blameless for record diesel prices or for a trade war on Canada. But they possess scant voting records to cite, and ample cause to dread Mr Trump should they utter substantial criticism.

The midterm math that still favors Republicans — on paper

In 20 of the 22 midterms since 1934, the sitting president’s party has shed seats. Yet Republicans enjoy atypical strengths this time.

President Trump’s redistricting power-grab has helped shield eight additional House seats for the party. That shift followed an electoral map already made so inflexible by gerrymandering that, over three cycles, neither party has won more than 222 of the House’s 435 seats.

In the Senate, Republicans must defend just one seat in a state, Maine, that Mr Trump lost in 2024. For a majority, Democrats need at least one victory in a state Mr Trump won by double digits, while holding two seats and capturing another in states he took by slimmer margins.

Yet The Economist‘s election model forecasts the Democrats will probably win the House and may take the Senate.

MAGA Inc’s $403m bet: help Trump ‘finish the job’

Mr Trump’s super PAC, MAGA Inc, which stockpiled $403m, is beginning to rescue embattled candidates such as Mr Paxton. It is also following a Trump-first approach, paying for two nationwide ads that praise the president while ignoring Congress.

The nearest either message comes to implying a Republican House member merits support is an appeal to help Mr Trump “finish the job”. To the majority disapproving of this presidency, that may sound menacing. But for MAGA it serves as a rallying cry.

Those same loyalists might overlook Mr Trump’s earlier ideas to distribute savings from government cuts or tariffs as dividends, and now embrace his pledge, in his convention address on September 9th, to distribute a “dividend” of $5,000 if voters choose Republican majorities. That crowd would likely also accept Mr Trump’s vow that a Republican vote means “we will leave the world in our dust for generations to come.”

Left in his dust: what happens if the gamble fails

Mr Trump may well be excavating a deeper pit for his party. Even so, should he lose one or both chambers, he will tower over the presidential contest that will erupt after the midterms.

He not only dominates the party’s base, he supplies the glue for its inconsistencies — between deregulation and state capitalism, isolationism and military adventurism. Yet the moment nears when Republicans must begin confronting the question: what, apart from Donald Trump, defines the party? ■

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