US: Trump led Republicans to power in 2024; but 2026 could be a different story

Washington: President Donald Trump successfully harnessed voter anxiety over the economy, immigration and crime last year to retake the White House — and lift plenty of other Republicans into office with him. But as the party tries to keep its grip on complete control in Washington, that strategy may be harder to replicate.

Republicans have lost a series of elections over the past month, some resoundingly. The latest setbacks came this week when a Democrat won the Miami mayor’s race for the first time in three decades. Democrats also won a special election in a historically Republican district in Georgia.

There are also signs that Trump’s influence over his party has its limits, and he failed Thursday to persuade Indiana state senators to approve a new congressional map that could have helped Republicans pick up two more seats.

Perhaps most concerning for Republicans, Trump is losing ground on the very issues that powered his comeback victory last year, potentially undermining his utility as a surrogate for the party’s candidates in the midterm elections. Only 31 per cent of US adults now approve of how he’s handling the economy, down from 40 per cent in March, according to a poll from The Associated Press-NORC Centre for Public Affairs Research. Trump has struggled to acknowledge the public’s concern, telling Politico this week that he gave himself an “A+++++”

on the economy. The picture wasn’t much brighter on other issues that Trump has capitalized on, including crime and immigration.

Despite Trump’s aggressive law-and-order posture, which includes deploying the National Guard in Washington and other Democratic-led cities, Americans’ approval of his handling of crime has slipped to 43 per cent from 53 per cent just a few months ago. On immigration, Trump’s most consistent priority since launching his political career a decade ago, approval of his handling of the issue dropped from 49 per cent in March to 38 per cent now.

GOP worries as midterm elections loom With Democrats just a few seats shy of reclaiming the House majority, Republicans are watching the developments with a growing sense of unease and frustration that the dynamics of Trump’s first midterm — when Democrats scored a net gain of 40 seats in 2018 — are at risk of repeating. agencies