The GOP’s midterm problem
President Trump spent Saturday night reposting at least 14 attacks on Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Miami Republican the party needs, while strategists say this midterm is heading toward 2006 and the NRSC is begging for $9 million to defend Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio.
Independents favor Democrats 53% to 31%, Republicans who dislike the President are staying home, and in North Carolina Roy Cooper is running to the right of Michael Whatley on the economy by promising to end the tariffs and the Iran war.
The polling likely overstates Democratic strength, but after November the GOP must reject the “common good” populists’ pro-life socialism, take corruption seriously, and return to family values, individual responsibility, and local communities.
The Pressure on Iran Is Working
A Treasury campaign reaching more than 50 countries has grounded Iranian airlines across the region and cut Iran’s biggest banks off from the UAE and Turkey, finally reaching the Iranians who had long been insulated from sanctions.
Iran is losing and lashing out asymmetrically, and British police arrested 5 men with 3 vans near RAF Fairford, the base hosting the American bombers that have struck Iran.
Oil is moving again, with 22 million barrels through Hormuz on Friday night and the Joliet refinery back online, and while gas prices still hurt the GOP, President Trump deserves credit for gaining the upper hand without sending troops.
Details on all of this, and more, below.
Maria Elvira Salazar is exactly the sort of Republican the party needs in a year like this. She represents a Miami district full of the Hispanic voters who moved to President Trump in 2024, and this month she cut an ad telling him that some of his immigration measures have gone too far. She noted that half of the people detained by ICE in July had no criminal record (crossing the border is illegal, but you know what she means), and she warned that the Hispanics who helped put him back in the White House now feel betrayed. On Saturday night, the President responded by reposting at least 14 attacks on her, including one calling for a new Republican to replace her five weeks before the election.
The GOP needs her seat, and the President is attacking her anyway. That is the environment Republicans are running in. The party needs a disciplined approach and the President is the Chief Agent of Chaos. Strategists with long memories tell me they cannot recall a midterm this bad, and that includes 2006 and 2018. One Republican advising federal races told Axios that it now looks worse than 2018 and is heading toward 2006. The Cook Political Report moved 15 House races toward Democrats on Friday. The National Republican Senatorial Committee is asking donors for $9 million to defend Alaska, Iowa, and Ohio, all states the President carried by double digits. At the committee’s Sea Island retreat this weekend, attendees called their own pollster’s rosy forecast “delusional.”
Republicans cannot win with just Republicans. They need independents, and the latest Fox News poll has independents favoring Democrats 53% to 31%. The President’s approval sits at 39%, and 51% of voters say his endorsement makes them less likely to support a candidate. In Texas, the party nominated Ken Paxton, whom Texas House Republicans impeached, and the independents who happily voted for Greg Abbott are now giving James Talarico a look to send to Washington. In farm country, the Wall Street Journal reports the worst environment for Republicans in decades because of tariffs, diesel and fertilizer prices driven up by the Iran war, and a plan to import more beef. Here in Middle Georgia, every week more farmers show up at the federal bankruptcy court. They were all Trump voters.
The other problem is the Republican who likes the party but not the President. Those voters are not switching sides. They are staying home. One national GOP pollster told Axios that the party is having trouble getting Republicans to even answer polls. Every time the President opens his mouth, whether about tariffs or a congresswoman in Miami, he makes those voters madder. Every new vanity building project in Washington and every new bit of gold leaf keeps another Republican home and makes another Independent mad.
I continue to believe the polling overstates Democratic strength. The Democrats’ lead on the generic ballot has held between 5 and 7 points all year, and a pollster who cannot get Republicans on the phone may well be undercounting them. By Election Day, there’ll still be a 2 to 3 point bias towards the Democrats. I also remember 2020, when the same states causing panic now caused panic then. Susan Collins trailed in nearly every public poll and won by almost 9 points. Texas, Iowa, and Ohio were all supposedly in play, and President Trump carried each of them comfortably. The candidates should ignore the hand-wringing, keep to the fundamentals, and knock on doors.
After this election, the Republicans who survive will need to start showing their independence from the President to set the stage for 2028. Unfortunately, the party has a habit of learning the wrong lesson from a loss. After Mitt Romney lost in 2012, the party’s autopsy concluded that Republicans needed to be more like Democrats. You can already see the “common good” populists building the same case, insisting the answer is more tariffs, more industrial policy, and more government stakes in private companies. Voters already believe the tariffs are hurting them, with 64% telling Fox the tariffs hurt the economy. They will not come back to a party offering them a pro-life version of socialism.
In North Carolina, former Democratic Governor Roy Cooper is mopping the floor with President Trump’s hand picked candidate, Michael Whatley. Cooper’s message is simple — end the tariffs and the war to make things more affordable. In other words, the Democrat in North Carolina is running to the right of the Republican on the economy.
“We know these tariffs are costing so much money to small businesses and to the customers that they have to pass the cost on to, and we want to end this war in Iran. We’ve got to do that,” [Cooper] said.
The GOP will make fundamental mistakes if it does not pivot back to family values, individual responsibility, and letting people navigate the economy without dictates from Washington — including in the candidates it nominates. It’s hard to take “family values” seriously, with a group of corrupt, lecherous adulterers on the ticket with pastors insisting those people are the best candidates.
The family and the local community, not a bureaucrat in Washington, should define the common good. The GOP must take corruption seriously, from the President’s family to candidates like Ken Paxton. By 53% to 26%, voters told Fox this administration is more corrupt than those before it. Republicans spent four years talking about the Biden family, and they cannot keep doing it credibly while ignoring their own. When the hearings come from the Democrats in 2027, Republicans would be wise to join the Democrats in asking tough questions, not defending what the public knows is indefensible.
In case you missed it, a Russian who allegedly helped Putin kidnap Ukrainian children paid for part of Donald Trump, Jr.’s wedding.
Congresswoman Salazar is right that Hispanic voters feel betrayed, and whatever is left of the GOP after November will have to win them back. But they’ll need to win back the trust of more than just Hispanic voters. There are a lot of people who have seen the corruption, the growing socialism, and the godlessness while professing Christ, and they’ve decided to sit on the sidelines. The Vice President coddling the groypers will not help the party.
One wonders how long the GOP will go after November before people start suggesting the President take early retirement so his Vice President can rebuild without a Trumpian albatross around his neck. Pay close enough attention to certain corners of social media, and you can see the murmurings beginning among those whose fortunes lie with Mr. Vance’s future. To them, the President was a means to an end, not the end, and now he is expendable. Notably, Mr. Vance’s primary champion, Peter Thiel, 𝕏has given up on the project and is moving on — a warning sign for the GOP and an ominous harbinger of what might come from the donor class.
On the bright side, we can trust the Democrats to overplay their hand and assume a rejection of the GOP in November is an endorsement of the Democrats’ own insanities and perversions.
There is good news in the Middle East, and it is not coming from the battlefield. President Trump’s campaign to isolate Iran is working, and it is working because this administration is applying a kind of pressure prior administrations never did.
This month, a Treasury official named Jonathan Burke, who once ran sanctions compliance at Citigroup, traveled across the Middle East and Europe with a simple message for Iran’s trading partners: you can do business with Tehran or you can do business with the United States, but you cannot do both. The Wall Street Journal reports Treasury officials met with representatives of more than 50 countries. The results came quickly. Oman banned Mahan Air, the airline tied to the Revolutionary Guard, and then blocked every Iranian airline. The United Arab Emirates barred branches of Bank Melli, Iran’s largest commercial bank, from processing Iran-related transactions and then banned Iranian flights. Turkey canceled Mahan’s flights and revoked the license of Bank Mellat. Azerbaijan and Georgia have shut out Iranian carriers, and Britain will not renew waivers for Iranian banks in London.
Sanctions have always had a soft spot. The regime’s cronies found workarounds, and Iran’s merchants, professionals, and business travelers kept banking in Dubai and flying out of Tehran. For decades, that class of Iranians was insulated from the worst of it. They are not insulated now. The rial is at record lows, economist Robin Brooks has documented unemployment spiking among Iran’s young people, and shortages are pushing the country toward hyperinflation. Iran’s own president conceded the economic damage this week.
The regime’s latest offer, which President Trump rejected on Saturday, demanded that the United States lift the naval blockade, waive oil sanctions, and release billions in frozen assets before Iran would even talk about its nuclear program. Ambassador Mike Waltz said Sunday that Tehran wanted everything up front. A government that believes it is winning does not make that offer.
Iran knows it is losing, so it is lashing out where it can. Early Sunday morning, British police arrested five men near RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire after a local resident reported three suspicious vans heading toward the base. Army bomb disposal teams worked the vehicles, homes in the village of Whelford were evacuated, and the men were arrested on explosives and terrorism offenses. Fairford hosts the American B-1 bombers that have struck Iranian missile sites, and the Revolutionary Guard warned in July that any base used against Iran was a legitimate target. Investigators have not confirmed an Iranian link, but they are examining one, and British officials already blame Iranian proxies for a string of arson and sabotage attempts in the United Kingdom. A regime that cannot win a conventional fight goes asymmetric.
Meanwhile, the oil is moving. A U.S. defense official confirmed that 22 million barrels passed through the Strait of Hormuz on Friday night, the most since the war began. ExxonMobil’s refinery in Joliet, Illinois, which went dark after a September 13 power outage and then flooded, is 𝕏fully back online and producing 11 million gallons of diesel and gasoline a day.
None of this makes the midterms easy. Gasoline averages $4.47 a gallon, diesel just hit a record, and voters feel that at the pump long before they read about Bank Mellat. The war has also dragged on longer than it needed to, and I still believe Israel should be turned loose on the regime.
Notwithstanding all of that, President Trump deserves credit. Without sending American troops into Iran, he has grounded Mahan Air across the region, locked Iran’s biggest banks out of Dubai and Istanbul, and pushed 22 million barrels through the strait in a single night. The mullahs are left trying to do terror attacks in Britain. Things are still dangerous, but the momentum is with Trump and the United States.
