Longtime GOP strategist reveals 'two mistakes' Trump is making at campaign rallies

U.S. President Donald Trump delivers a speech on energy and the economy, in Clive, Iowa, U.S., January 27, 2026. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque

Strategist Karl Rove writes in the Wall Street Journal that Republicans have an economy problem — and Trump’s constant crowing about his economy is making voters furious.

“The president came to Iowa last month for an economic speech. His team hoped his appearance in a Des Moines suburb would recenter the discussion,” said Rove, adding: “It didn’t.”

“Mr. Trump made two mistakes,” said Rove. “The first was straying from the subject for almost half his speech. Victories and stolen elections. Immigration. Introducing politicians on the stage. Attacking his predecessor for multiple sins. Lots of different foreign issues. He went everywhere — and therefore nowhere.”

But the second, said Rove, was assuming that voters were just as happy with his economy as he apparently is.

“[It was] Trump’s triumphal tone,” said Rove. “He congratulated himself on ‘the greatest first year of any administration in American history.’ The ‘economy is booming,’ he said. It’s been ‘the best first year of any president ever maybe.’ All this left the impression that the nation’s economic challenges are solved.”

Rove said Trump is making the same mistake President Biden did with his claim that “Bidenomics is working.” And his exaggeration “makes people who are suffering feel unseen and abandoned.”

Meanwhile, the University of Michigan’s Index of Consumer Sentiment shows the confidence of Americans without a college degree is the worst since 1976. Blue-collar jobs, Rove said, declined by more than 145,000 last year, and low-income households are getting whacked the hardest by inflation because prices for necessities have exploded.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents in a new CNN poll say Trump’s first year was “a failure” while only 33 percent believe Trump cares about people like them. RealClearPolitics approval for Trump’s handling of the economy is at 41 percent, and approval of his handling of inflation is at 37 percent. Rove points out that even a Fox poll shows Republicans leading among white voters without a college degree —their mainstay — by only 10 points.

“The president should stop bragging,” Rove said. “Many Americans, especially swing voters, feel things aren’t good. A reliable Politics 101 strategy is to explain, empathize, underpromise and overdeliver.”

But it is not Trump’s nature to admit that things aren’t perfect and there’s more to be done, said Rove, so it falls to individual Republican candidates to temper the message.

“House and Senate Republicans shouldn’t wait for Mr. Trump’s messaging to become focused. Nor should they depend on the economy getting better, even if it will,” said Rove. “… For GOP success this fall, Republicans need a better economic message than what Americans heard from the president in Iowa.”

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