President Donald Trump showed French President Emmanuel Macron around his Manhattan penthouse on Monday night. People with knowledge of the private conversation said Trump predicted Republicans would overperform in November, according to The Wall Street Journal. During the visit, he grinned for photos and talked up the economy.
That outlook is not widely shared among Republicans. About 700 miles away in Michigan, Senate candidate Mike Rogers put out a campaign video filmed in a grocery store. In it, he pressed for lower prices and a quick end to the war in Iran. “We have to bring prices down,” Rogers said. “The war with Iran needs to end, and end quickly.”
A Wall Street Journal poll of 1,500 registered voters conducted Sept. 16-21 found that 37% of Americans approve of the job Trump is doing. The Journal said that figure is the lowest for any president heading into a midterm election in its polls dating to 1990. The survey’s margin of error is plus or minus 2.5 percentage points.
GOP candidates in tight races move away from Trump on Iran and prices
The same poll found that 11% of voters who supported Trump in 2024 now say they regret that vote. Among Republicans who say they are not part of the MAGA movement, 11% said they plan to vote for a Democrat for Congress this fall. Those non-MAGA Republicans make up about one-third of GOP voters.
White House spokesman Davis Ingle said, “President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party, and he is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress.”
Trump spent a whirlwind week taking steps that left Republican candidates, strategists, and lawmakers puzzled, the Journal reported. He abruptly banned three media outlets from the White House, setting off a standoff that led major TV networks to limit video coverage of his events. He praised New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic socialist. At the United Nations, he threatened to annihilate Iran and escalate the war.
That same week, he threw a state dinner for China’s Xi Jinping. He also appeared in government-funded anti-communism ads that show clips of him while a choir sings “Love Me.”
Republican strategist Colin Reed said, “This is the week where it felt like the bottom started falling out in earnest.” Reed added, “President Trump is the Republican Party right now, and by virtue of his lower approval ratings, the entire party is dealing with that political reality.”
Control of Congress in the last two years of Trump’s second term could shape his agenda and the path to the 2028 presidential race, the first since 2012 without Trump on the ballot. Democrats need a handful of seats to take the House. The GOP-held Senate is viewed as a tossup, and some Republicans worry the map is moving toward Democrats.
Trump has sometimes pointed to history and suggested Republicans could lose a large number of seats. He has also warned voters about potential consequences, such as when he called Spain’s migrant surge a catastrophe and said the US could face something much bigger if Republicans lose.
In public and in private, lately, he has instead projected confidence that the party will beat those expectations. John Catsimatidis, a New York grocery-store owner and longtime Trump friend who was present for the Macron meeting, said, “He thinks we’re going to win, but it’s going to be close.”
Campaigns in key races recently got fresh internal polls that highlighted the problems facing the GOP, according to people familiar with the matter. A Republican strategist said voters link Trump to higher food and gas prices, higher mortgage rates, and the spread of data centers.
The White House began considering steps to ease those concerns, including a temporary ban on diesel fuel exports. The energy industry pushed back. Energy Secretary Chris Wright later played down a ban and said officials are looking at voluntary export limits instead.
Several Republicans in must-win states broke with Trump on policy this week. Rep. Ashley Hinson, running for Senate in Iowa, called for an end to the Iran war and said Congress should return to Washington to pause diesel exports and suspend the gas tax. Candidates in Ohio and Wisconsin also called for the war to end.
Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar of Florida put out a TV ad shot in front of the White House that calls Trump’s immigration enforcement excessive. People familiar with the matter said Trump has privately expressed frustration that she broke with him in public.
Lawmakers who are not on the ballot this year also spoke out. Sen. John Curtis of Utah called for an investigation of Donald Trump Jr. after a disclosure that the president’s oldest son received a lavish afterparty as a wedding gift from a Russian businessman connected to the Kremlin. Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi went to the Senate floor to raise concerns about inviting Xi to the White House.
Some Republicans said they were privately aghast at dinner images that included Chinese flags on the White House roof and officials on their hands and knees dusting a red carpet before Xi walked across it.
A Texas PAC tied to the Senate Leadership Fund has spent more than $100 million backing Ken Paxton against Democrat James Talarico and could spend as much as $200 million by Election Day, a person familiar with the group’s planning said. Polling has shown Talarico with a slim lead in a state Trump carried by 14 points in 2024.
White House and campaign officials said Trump will hold dozens of tele-rallies for Republican candidates and plans trips to battleground states. Next week, he is scheduled to rally in Oklahoma and Alabama, two states he won by more than 30 points in 2024.
Published: Sep 28, 2026 11:30 am