MAGA’s 'last gasp': GOP insiders are cursing Trump’s plan

US President Donald Trump speaks during a rally in support of Republican US Senate reelection candidate Roger Marshall (R-KS) in Park City, Kansas, US, October 19, 2026. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

On Wednesday, new reporting revealed that MAGA insiders fear President Donald Trump’s go-to campaign strategy “doesn’t work anymore.” According to Michael Warren, politics editor at the conservative outlet the Dispatch, the plummeting impact and attendance at Trump’s rallies signal “MAGA’s last gasp.”

With pollsters forecasting a potential blue tsunami, writes Warren, “Trump is doing what he can, in the only way he knows how, to salvage his party’s hopes: holding primetime fly-in rallies that are focused on his favorite subject, himself.” While he has been relentless in his campaign schedule, however, “it’s far from clear that Trump barnstorming the country to stump for candidates will even help.” As one veteran GOP operative told him, “We’re f——. I don’t think rallies work anymore.”

For Warren, this raises an important question: “What good is showing up to do these rallies anymore, and at the eleventh hour?” He notes that many Republicans worry that their mission is doomed by Trump’s lack of party-building over the past two years as well as his endorsement of “subpar” candidates, with party insiders suspecting the rallies will do little to move the needle. Instead of focusing on the hard work of winning campaigns, like phone banking and door-knocking, in non-presidential years, and building party campaign infrastructure, Trump’s efforts have mostly involved flying into red states to churn out MAGA platitudes for those who already agree with him.

Warren says that raises another question: “What is the closing message for the Republican Party in these midterms?” The latest rallies have involved railing about the “woke mob," but Warren suggests that in the end, it all circles around to the same old “Make America Great Again” messaging that Trump has been pushing with diminishing returns for 10 years. “The details are different, specific to the state and the news and the whims of the president in the moment, but the song remains the same,” writes Warren. “The 2020 election. The ‘Dumbocrats.’ Fake news. The beautiful border wall. The low cost of gasoline (back during his first term, of course).” As Trump said at a rally in Greenville, North Carolina, “The oil is going to get down to where I had it. I had it down to $1.85 a gallon, and I’ll have it down to that number.”

But this sort of talk is falling flat now. Polls show that voters disapprove of Trump’s approach to everything from the economy to immigration to corruption. As a result, the president is increasingly turning back to his old refrains or trying new bribes. But as Warren concludes, “The only message, as it has been for a decade, is Trump. And as electoral disaster looms for the GOP, the party is only beginning to grapple with what the message will be afterward, on November 4 and in the months and years to come.”

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