All these explanations for Tennessee try to avoid the difficult problem facing the party: the president's approval rating. In the RealClearPolitics average, it's 42.4%. In Gallup, it's 36%. Both are the lowest of his second term, wrote Rove. The Gallup poll details who has lost confidence in Mr. Trump. Among Republicans, his approval dropped from 91% in November 2024 to 84% last month. Among independents, it has dropped by double digits, from 42% in November 2024 to 25% today.
You cannot run in a midterm election by saying, vote for us because we've done a great job,' particularly when people don't feel the consequences of the policies that you've enacted. he continued. If the president's Big Beautiful Bill was as instantaneously positive as he thinks, his numbers wouldn't be-, on approval numbers on the economy, wouldn't be in the 30s, and his overall approval wouldn't be in the low-40s.
She's almost like a canary in a coal mine. And this is something inside Congress they better wake up, because they're going to get a lot of people retiring, and they've got to focus, McCarthy said.
Donald Trump himself alternates between claiming he's already pushed the cost of living way down and publicly mulling ways to convince Americans to feel better about their ability to make ends meet. Obviously Republicans need to improve the president's sinking job-approval numbers in anticipation of high-stakes midterm elections. But more immediately, the GOP must decide how to deal with the health-insurance "cliff" it created by failing to extend Obamacare premium subsidies in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.
President Trump could change his mind, of course, but it makes some sense from his point of view. He knows preserving Republicans' governing trifecta is going to be an uphill climb in 2026, given the historical pattern of the White House party almost always losing House seats in the midterms. His iron control of the GOP means it won't be hard to impose discipline on hand-picked delegates to an event like this, essentially making it a big paid ad for the party and its messages.
A conservative group aligned with congressional GOP leadership has been distributing polling data to Hill Republicans that shows 25% of voters view inflation as the most important issue facing the country. That's more than double the percentage of the second-ranked concern - government corruption - according to the polling by the GOP firm GrayHouse. Senate Republicans also are being confronted with polling that indicates voters see the party as not focused enough on rising costs and the prospect of shortages of items such as drugs, groceries and toys. Party operatives have conducted focus groups in which voters express support for Trump's moves on foreign policy but want more efforts to counter inflation.