U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to the media on board Air Force One on the way to Miami, Florida, U.S., April 12, 2025. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
President Donald Trump's poll numbers are so bad that Republicans are facing one of the toughest elections in years. But outside of those poll numbers, Republicans face a deeper problem than the president's coattails: a president who desperately needs public credit for every success and won’t let the party shift the conversation.
Speaking to The New Republic's Greg Sargent, Democratic strategist Christina Reynolds compared failures in 2006 at the hands of George W. Bush to Trump's 2026 election. Bush was happy to step aside and allow others to claim credit for fixing things. That didn't prove successful, as Democrats won a staggering number of seats in both the House and Senate.
As November's midterm election approaches, Trump faces losses on the war, the economy and the affordability crisis that he maintains is a hoax. But the larger problem is that any success won't be thanks to their work. Trump needs the public's appreciation for the win, if the country is lucky to have one.
"And I think Republicans have an even bigger problem than those numbers," said Reynolds. "They have a president who absolutely wants credit for fixing everything. He believes his own spin, certainly, but also he believes he’s taken action and should get credit for that action. And to some degree, that happens with a lot of politicians, but this president is especially guilty of that. And so he is not going to fade away into the background, which Bush did largely in 2006. He is not going to let the Republicans go out and shift the conversation."
Another problem is that all of these issues are at the top of mind for Americans, but they're not what Trump wants to talk about.
"When inflation is growing higher than your wages, voters understand that. They know it. They live it," said Reynolds. "And so you can’t convince them things are better when they’re literally not. But Trump is not just going to go out and talk about things and remind voters of that — he’s going to go out and talk about his ballroom. He’s going to go out and talk about the reflecting pool, as he did in Wisconsin when he went to one of the most vulnerable Republicans."
That is a huge problem for Republicans who are desperately trying to stay on message about the economy. It isn't just Trump's bad poll numbers, Reynolds said. "It’s what Trump’s going to do because of the polling number[s]."
Unlike Bush, Trump doesn't appear to care much about the midterms. "Trump is about what gets Trump where he needs to go. And it’s a huge problem for Republicans," explained Reynolds. "I mean, you heard it in the 'I don’t care about the midterms' comment. You hear it in everything that he does."
She said that Republicans likely want him to take a back seat, but he's doing the exact opposite.
Rather than dealing with issues that matter most to people, Trump simply can't stop himself from talking about things that are unpopular.
"He is just clinically unable to move on because of that rage and that frustration, because it didn’t go the way he assumed it would go," said Reynolds. "And so we are stuck in a war that people didn’t ask for, that we proactively started. But we are domestically stuck with higher gas prices and everything that stems from that."
Reynolds said that it's all from Trump not getting what he wants, not getting credit and not being praised by the public.
"I am a little baffled as to what he thinks he should get credit for at this point, but no one is giving him any credit. They are giving him, rightly, the blame. And he can’t handle that," she said.