Politics

Republicans are privately blaming Trump, even if they won’t say it out loud

Published

1 day ago

November 2, 2026

Republicans are already privately blaming President Donald Trump as they brace for losses on Tuesday.

Even as they race to distance themselves from his actions on tariffs, the unpopular Iran war and his mass deportation agenda, few have been willing to criticize him publicly — a clear sign of just how powerful Trump’s grip remains on the GOP. But interviews with roughly a dozen candidates, campaign officials and lawmakers reveal they’re acutely aware of who, exactly, put them on the back foot this entire cycle.

“There was a point earlier this year where we really felt like we could defy history,” said one House Republican, who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to candidly discuss midterms dynamics. “And then Trump bombed Iran. And it was just one thing after another.”

Republicans are tied or trailing in polls in numerous critical battlegrounds and expecting to lose some once-secure red seats. And Trump’s unfocused closing message — including repeated comments about male candidates’ physical appearances — has further frustrated an already on-edge party.

“I think Jon Husted’s ass and Nicki Minaj’s is a great closing message,” T.W. Arrighi, a Republican strategist working on the South Carolina Senate race and others, said sarcastically in an interview on The Conversation with Dasha Burns. “You’ve got to take the good with the bad with Trump, unless you want to drive yourself crazy every day.”

“People are gonna go after the president. The buck stops with him. His approval ratings aren’t great,” he added.

Privately, some Republicans are even harsher. “At least when Barack Obama was president, he only screwed his enemies, never his friends,” said a second House Republican.

The White House defended its involvement in the war with Iran, tariff regime and approach to immigration enforcement. Davis Ingle, a White House spokesperson, said in a statement that Trump “is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party, and he is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress.”

One White House official, granted anonymity to speak candidly, called the blame game “an asinine adventure” and said Trump “has obviously left it all on the field.”

If the bottom falls out for the GOP on Tuesday, the quiet calls assigning him blame may turn into a public shanking as Trump nears the lame-duck stage of his presidency, Republicans refocus on how to win voters back for 2028 and jostle for their own spots in the party’s future.

“I’m not sure what the Republican Party looks like in six months. Look, a lot of Republicans have held their tongues. A lot of Republicans who have real problems with the way things have gone the last two years have been good soldiers,” said a Republican strategist involved in competitive midterm races across the country. “But what happens if we lose 35 House seats and six Senate seats?”

“We all know who the problem is. It’s Trump. And do we continue down a path of losing?” the strategist added.

In Georgia, some Republicans have already warned that low early voting turnout in rural parts of the state could drag down their entire ticket. “If you live in rural Georgia, you’re going to be disproportionately hurt by higher — especially diesel — prices,” said Jason Shepherd, the former GOP chair of suburban Cobb County. “The promise of the great Trump economy has not materialized.”

Top Hill Republicans have worked behind the scenes for months to try to alleviate some of the political fallout from Trump’s election year policy moves, including arguing to White House officials that Maine Sen. Susan Collins and Michigan Senate nominee Mike Rogers could lose their races if the administration didn’t reach an off-ramp from the trade war with Canada, according to three Republicans with direct knowledge of the matter. Eventually, Trump agreed to roll back some tariffs and add new ones in a boost to Collins.

Republicans also pressed for the White House to undo some of Trump’s other controversial moves, like his executive order to import more foreign beef that has riled ranchers and farmers in red states like Kansas, Iowa and Texas. But that relief never came.

“Republicans have always been aware of the historical midterm precedent, and that’s why we’re barnstorming the country to tout the president’s achievements on cutting taxes, securing the border, and lowering drug costs,” said Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee. “Any anonymous strategist who says the president is not helpful in turning out Republican voters has no idea what they’re talking about, and their candidates should request a refund for their shoddy consulting services.”

But Trump’s actions, Republicans say, are hitting different parts of the country hard. The Iran war, they argue, was a significant blunder from Trump that has multiplied Democrats’ paths to power in both the House and Senate by driving fuel and fertilizer costs up — most notably impacting races across the Midwest.

The White House’s tariffs regime has been a major concern in battlegrounds on the Canadian border like Maine and Michigan.

Hardline immigration enforcement that has resulted in the deportation of thousands has hurt especially in heavily Latino border states like Arizona and Texas, and the cancelling of Temporary Protected Status for Haitians and Venezuelans has enraged South Florida voters. Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Miami Republican, warned the president in a campaign ad earlier this year that his immigration tactics had gone too far.

“Trump won Miami, and yet he went to the place that gave him the biggest support, and kind of just fucked everybody over if we’re being honest.” said one Florida-based Republican operative.

New results from The Blue Light News Poll show that Republican midterm voters are split over who they would blame if the GOP performs worse than it did in 2024: A sizable 29% blame Trump for making the GOP less popular, while 30% said it is because Trump himself is not on the ballot. Fourteen percent said it would be because the Democratic Party has become more popular, while roughly one in four said they don’t know.

Some in the party question whether Trump’s last-minute campaign travel across the country and the millions of dollars his political operation has poured into battleground states will even be enough. They see him as more absorbed in protecting his legacy than making actionable policy changes to help his party stay in power.

“He cares more about the ballroom than he cares about Republicans winning the midterms,” said a third Republican strategist working in battleground races. “He wants the Nobel Peace Prize, these big legacy-defining things seem to be taking up more of his attention than actually being president.”

A fourth GOP operative working on midterms races has a curt message if Republicans lose big: “Thank you, Donald Trump.”

Dasha Burns contributed reporting.

Politics

The affordability election that teaches Democrats nothing

Published

38 minutes ago

November 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republicans have a trust problem on affordability, and Democrats are poised to inherit it.

If Democrats do as well tonight as polls suggest, everyone knows the two reasons why: affordability and President Donald Trump. For a year now, The Blue Light News Poll has consistently found that half of Americans rank the cost of living as one of their top three issues — and in a series of surveys this month, most Democratic voters say their vote is more about Trump than the candidates on the ballot.

But our polling also reveals the challenges for a Democratically-controlled Congress. Democrats have opened up a strong advantage on affordability, but voters who are demanding action may quickly turn on a party that finds itself torn between competing priorities.

Much of the Democratic coalition is approaching the midterms as a referendum on Trump, meaning a victory tonight would offer few clear lessons about what should come next.

Democratic voters’ two biggest demands — drive down the cost of living and stop Trump — can also conflict, especially when it comes time to govern. Asked to choose between passing bipartisan legislation to reduce the cost of living or avoid giving the Trump administration any wins, Democrats are not united. Twenty-nine percent would prefer to sacrifice progress on affordability to help their 2028 chances.

Here is what a year of The Blue Light News Poll tells us about the electorate heading into the midterms — and what comes next.

Other issues have risen and fallen, but the cost of living has remained in a tier of its own. Even as global instability rose in the spring, roughly half of Americans still ranked the cost of living among the country’s top three issues. The central test of the midterms has barely changed.

Republicans’ problem isn’t just that voters are focused on cost of living – it’s that they increasingly trust Democrats to bring it down. Over the last year, Democrats have solidified support from their own base and made small gains among voters who went for Trump or sat out in 2024. That alone was enough to widen their advantage from 2 points to 17 points.

Over half of voters supporting a Democratic candidate say their vote is more about Trump and his performance than the candidates themselves. That sentiment is particularly pronounced among progressives and those who have felt the squeeze of rising grocery and gas prices.This reveals a risk for Democrats. Learning how to beat Trump is less valuable than learning how to run candidates with popular platforms of their own — particularly with only two years left before he is no longer the president.

Over the past year, we tested Democratic voters on a series of trade-offs between standing on principle and risking control of the House or the fight against Trump. They agreed on one thing: Lying to win is a bridge too far. Beyond that, Democratic voters are often split between principle and pragmatism. A narrow victory could sharpen the party’s progressive-moderate divide, but the larger question for a Democratic Congress would be how hard to fight Trump’s agenda.

Before the 2024 presidential election, PF Global’s polling showed a dynamic that might sound familiar. Trump voters believed nearly every part of American life was getting worse. Now, under a Republican administration, their outlook has brightened — while Harris voters have grown markedly gloomier. The reversal shows how quickly partisan control shapes public perception. If Democrats retake Congress, they may gain not only the power to address voters’ problems, but the burden of solving them.

Seb Wride is the head of polling at PF Global, the London-based firm that runs The Blue Light News Poll.

Politics

‘We forgot what it’s like to be populist’: Republicans see Trump’s 2024 crumbling

Published

38 minutes ago

November 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republicans’ 2024 coalition is cracking in real time.

President Donald Trump roared back into office two years ago after making major gains with young voters and Americans of color. Now those key groups appear to be moving away from him amid an unpopular Iran war and his lagging approval ratings, according to new results from the Blue Light News Poll conducted by PF Global.

Roughly 9% of Trump 2024 voters plan to cast their ballot for a Democrat this year, compared with just over 2% of former Vice President Kamala Harris’ voters who now plan to back Republicans.

Underlying that shift is a lack of enthusiasm from two groups central to Trump’s win: Latinos and young people.

At the end of last year, 56% of Hispanic Trump voters identified as MAGA Republicans. As of this October, just 37% still do, revealing a frustration with the label that denotes some of the president’s most loyal supporters.

At the end of last year, 50% of young Trump voters ages 20 to 29 said they were certain to vote. As of this October, just 38% say this.

It’s an alarming sign for the party heading into election night, as Republicans race to save deep-red seats across the map and juice turnout among the MAGA base to avoid unthinkable losses.

The scramble on the campaign trail reveals the extent of the concern. Speaker Mike Johnson is making one final campaign swing through South Texas on Tuesday, where Republicans have been racing to assuage Hispanic voters’ concerns over mass deportations and the economy. GOP officials are fretting about the impact of lingering inflation and high prices on working-class voters of all races, including young men they’re scared to death won’t show up to the polls in strong enough numbers.

They’re also pouring millions of last-minute dollars into a series of southern states with large Black populations whose voters appear to be surging to the polls in record numbers — like Mississippi, South Carolina and even Louisiana — to shore them up.

“The coalition that we built under Trump doesn’t fucking exist anymore,” said Gina Swoboda, a longtime Trump ally and former chair of the Arizona Republican Party.

The White House has been trying to stem the bleeding within the Trump coalition of voters: The president has barnstormed a series of largely red states and is holding a flurry of tele-rallies in the final days.

“Two years ago, Trump and other Republicans had a play with those voters because they were frustrated with Biden and Harris; two years later, things might be less bad than they were two years ago — but they’re still concerned,” said Scott Walker, the Republican former governor of Wisconsin and 2016 presidential candidate who now leads the conservative Young America’s Foundation.

White House spokesperson Lauren Bis said Trump has “crisscrossed the country” campaigning for Republicans and drawing a contrast with “the radical-left Democrats.”

“President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party,” Bis added.

Natalie Baldassarre, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, said in a statement that the “Trump administration has delivered on its promises to the American people” and the president “has barnstormed the nation to tout these achievements.”

GOP Latino voters start to shed the ‘MAGA’ label

The durability of Republicans’ 2024 coalition is a crucial test for the party’s future. Republicans’ inroads with young, Latino and Black voters propelled the party into a trifecta of power in Washington, and keeping those gains will be key to the GOP’s bid to hold onto power. A regression in support from those groups could send Republicans back to the drawing board as they craft a winning formula for the 2028 presidential election.

Top Republicans are incredibly worried about losing their grip on Hispanic voters, as they try to stave off a bloodbath in South Texas, losses across key Florida House seats and more.

There’s been a 19-point drop between last November and this October of Hispanic Trump voters who identify as MAGA, part of Trump’s core base, according to the poll. While two-thirds of these voters still intend to vote for Republicans in the midterm election, their dissatisfaction with Trump’s agenda is clear.

The survey found that Hispanic Trump voters are more likely than non-Hispanic Trump voters to have voted for Democrats in the past decade — and think the Trump administration’s mass deportations are too aggressive.

Just one election season ago, Trump romped to victory in South Texas over Hispanic voters’ concerns about the border and the economy; Texas Republicans redrew the congressional map last year to make seats in South Texas even more favorable.

But the Trump administration’s heavy-handed immigration enforcement, championed by senior White House official Stephen Miller, has sent Hispanics swinging back, according to four Hill Republicans, who were granted anonymity to discuss internal conversations. It’s harmed what once seemed like prime opportunities to unseat Democratic Reps. Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar, while endangering GOP Rep. Monica De La Cruz in a newly redrawn district the president won by 18 points in 2024. A group of Hispanic GOP lawmakers have continued to raise concerns directly to Johnson and senior White House officials.

“Would I feel better if gas were $2.50 instead of $3.30? Yeah. But good luck convincing a guy things are getting better while ICE is picking up his uncle,” said one Texas Republican strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly.

The White House in response provided statements from Texas GOP Reps. Pat Fallon, Brandon Gill, Ronny Jackson and Lance Gooden defending Miller.

“Hispanic Americans will continue to see that the Republican Party is fighting for the issues that matter most to their families, and Stephen Miller is absolutely leading the charge,” Jackson said.

Senior Hill Republicans have been trying to salvage the imperiled South Texas House seats in a flurry of visits over the past few weeks. But they privately believe they reached the point days ago where no amount of money would stave off the impending disaster.

“It’s the economy,” said Daniel Garza, the president of the Koch-backed LIBRE initiative and a Texas-based Republican strategist. Republicans’ vote share of Latino voters has increased steadily over the last decade, Garza noted, which is a long-term win for the party. But he says independent Latino voters have grown disillusioned since Trump’s return to office, especially on the economy. “I think they had higher expectations,” he added.

Young Republicans aren’t certain they’ll vote

One year ago, half of young Trump voters were certain they’d vote in this year’s election.

But this past spring, that number dropped sharply: the percentage of young people who’d backed Trump who were certain they’d vote dropped by 11 points.

As early as March, shortly after the war in Iran began, young GOP supporters began to voice their frustrations that the president had broken a core campaign promise. Other Republicans predicted that if the war lasted longer than a few weeks, its consequences would come back to bite the party at the ballot box.

That chorus included influential voices like podcaster Joe Rogan, who has significant influence over young men. He had hosted both Trump and Vice President JD Vance on his show in the lead up to the 2024 election.

Some Republicans are concerned that the big-tent team they formed just two years ago has been irreparably splintered — and their lack of a strong affordability message is to blame.

“We forgot that we’re a populist party,” said one Republican operative in Florida who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss the state of the GOP coalition. Areas like South Florida, and Miami-Dade County in particular, were central to Trump’s diverse, big-tent party: the president flipped the longtime Democratic county for the GOP for the first time since 1988 in 2024.

“We went from being a very populist, scrappy kind of kumbaya party to this kind of almost elitist Republican Party,” they added.

But even as Democrats see the prospect of significant wins and a crumbling GOP coalition, some warn they, too, haven’t found a winning message they can build on in future cycles.

“It’s like being in a relationship: You break up with someone and you have a little distance, and then you start romanticizing them,” said Michael Ceraso, a Democratic strategist and veteran of Bernie Sanders and Pete Buttigieg’s presidential campaigns. “I think [Democrats] all have recognized, very much in the summer, just to move out of the way. Because we’re watching voters being like, ‘I want out of this relationship with Trump.’”