Nonpartisan forecasters have moved a number of congressional contests in Democrats' favor in recent days.
By Marianne LeVine, Meridith McGraw and Philip Wegmann
President Trump huddled last week with an unconventional adviser on Air Force One as he traveled to a rally in Mobile, Ala.: far-right activist Laura Loomer.
As Loomer offered the president campaign advice -- attack "jihadist candidates," she told him -- she had a bigger worry in the back of her mind, she said this week. The playbook that returned Trump to the White House two years ago might not work in this year's midterms.
"A lot of these candidates are not very dynamic people, and the president's rallies are a last-ditch effort to bring them across the finish line," she said. "It's just very difficult to inspire people to get out to vote when you have a lot of do-nothing candidates who are not necessarily as dynamic as the president." Trump, she said, was "positive" but "realistic" about the GOP's prospects.
Loomer is part of a growing group of Republicans who are privately and publicly sounding the alarm that the party will perform poorly next month. Strategists and advisers are describing 2026 as one of the most difficult political environments for an incumbent party in recent memory. Republicans are confronting higher prices, a war with Iran and the lowest approval rating in decades of any president heading into a midterm election.
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report this week shifted three Senate races in Democrats' favor, moving Kansas to a "tossup," New Hampshire to "lean Democrat" and North Carolina to "likely Democrat." It also moved 18 House races toward Democrats.
"Could this be a wave that takes the House, or a tsunami that takes the Senate, or an asteroid that just cleans out the party?" asked Matthew Bartlett, a Republican strategist and former Trump appointee. "We will see, but the polling and the feelings -- nothing is good right now. Nothing is going in our direction."
Trump's political advisers are banking on turning out low-propensity voters with a blitz of presidential rallies in red areas across the country. The approach retools the turnout machine that delivered in 2024. They are also using targeted digital ads, mailers and phone calls to persuade these voters to cast ballots.
Those close to the campaign strategy say that polls showing Democrats with significant advantages are inaccurate because they don't capture these low-propensity voters. Trump thinks he might be able to defy expectations, as he has in previous elections, according to people close to him.
But he has also privately expressed frustration in recent days that two of his top political advisers, Chris LaCivita and James Blair, recently traveled to the Republika Srpska -- a self-governing entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina -- during the thick of the U.S. campaign, according to people familiar with the matter. They were paid hundreds of thousands of dollars for election work for the pro-Russian government, the New York Times reported.
Senior White House officials say that Trump has received an unadulterated view of the state of the race, and some top Republicans are working to ensure the president understands the situation on the ground.
Before a White House meeting last week with top technology executives, Trump pulled aside House Speaker Mike Johnson (R., La.) for an impromptu meeting, according to people familiar with the meeting.
In the Oval Office, Johnson delivered a frank assessment of the midterms as the pair went race-by-race through the handful of tossup contests that likely will determine control of Congress. Johnson gave Trump what one person present for the conversation described as "a clinical analysis" of where things stand.
Though publicly optimistic about Republicans' chances, Johnson has contemplated the possibility of failure. He later told Fox News that if the GOP lost its House majority, he might return to Louisiana and "start a lawn business."
Cash bet
Trump came under scrutiny this week during a rally in Nebraska for suggesting that Los Angeles and San Diego could be attacked by Iran. He told the audience that the Iran conflict was "a small price to pay" for keeping the U.S. and the world safe. "They could take out a city. Let 'em take out Los Angeles, let 'em take out San Diego," he said. The president later walked back the remarks.
Davis Ingle, a White House spokesman, said in a statement that "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."
Republicans are betting on money as one major advantage in the coming contests. The Republican National Committee and its two congressional committees reported more than $233 million in cash at the end of August. In addition, the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. super PAC reported nearly $416 million in cash at that time. Meanwhile, the Democratic National Committee and the party's House and Senate committees reported more than $130 million in cash on hand at the end of August. The DNC also had $17.6 million in debt.
Trump's advisers still see a narrow path to keeping a Republican majority in the Senate and even narrowly holding on to the House by replicating elements of his successful 2024 presidential campaign: frequent rallies and the push to turn out low-propensity voters.
The president's political team is trying to send him to places where he can increase turnout while not alienating independent voters. Next week, Trump plans to hold a rally in Alaska, which will help determine Senate control, and he is expected to make a swing through the western battleground states of Montana and Arizona.
Officials say that Trump's visits are being supplemented by local media interviews so he can tout his administration's accomplishments and deliver a get-out-the-vote message.
'Pretend I'm on the ticket'
Central to Trump's closing argument is that he is on the ballot himself. "I just want you to go out and pretend I'm on the ticket, because essentially I am," Trump urged voters in North Carolina last month. The president has acknowledged the historical headwinds facing the GOP, telling supporters, "When I'm not on the ballot we don't do well."
Marc Short, who was chief of staff to former Vice President Mike Pence, said the challenge Trump faces in rallying voters is that many Republicans feel disaffected.
"They felt when they were voting for Trump in '24 they were going to get similar policies to the first Trump administration," Short said. "It's been such a departure from what Donald Trump did in his first term, I think it's dissuaded a lot of people to actually turn out and vote."
In recent weeks, Republicans have grown increasingly concerned about Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's ability to win his Senate race, with some saying that it was possible that Republicans would hold their Senate seat in Maine, a blue state, while losing Texas, a red one. The president told reporters recently that he didn't regret endorsing Paxton over Sen. John Cornyn (R., Texas) in the GOP primary, describing Paxton as "the best attorney general of the whole country." Republicans have privately said that Trump will shoulder the blame if Paxton loses.
Some on the president's political team have suggested that the environment might not be as dire for Republicans as polling suggests, and that the GOP panic is overstated. The Trump team has been following some of the early voting results in Ohio and Florida that they say are trending in favor of Republicans.
Trump often receives polling from his team and from people on the ground in battleground states -- including the candidates themselves -- even though he and his advisers are skeptical of some polling. His advisers point to a major nonresponse bias, particularly among non-college-educated, rural white Republicans in red, Midwestern states, who aren't eager to share their opinions with pollsters over the phone.
"President Trump is a turnout machine for low-propensity voters," said Natalie Baldassarre, the RNC's national press secretary. "He's done it three times before, and his barnstorming of the country in battleground races and beyond is absolutely energizing our base and driving our voters to the polls."
For Trump, his recent rallies have also served as his own kind of farewell tour.
At the rally last week in Mobile, Ala., where he held a large rally in 2015, Trump told attendees: "I'm here really because, you know, sometimes, even though you don't have to come here, you got to pay respect to the people that have loved you right from the beginning."