President Donald J. Trump on August 11, 2026, in the Oval Office. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian/Flickr)
With President Donald Trump suffering from poor approval ratings in countless polls, many GOP insiders are, behind closed doors, saying that they wish he would keep a lower profile until after the midterms. But Trump is doing the exact opposite. And according to Washington Post reporters Clara Ence Morse, Gregory S. Schneider and Theodoric Meyer, GOP candidates are "ignoring" Trump's advice for the midterms.
"President Donald Trump handed Republicans what he said was a surefire formula for winning the midterm elections this fall: Act as if Trump is on the ballot and promise $5000 payouts to every citizen," Morse, Schneider and Meyer report in the Washington Post. "A week after the Republican midterm convention where Trump delivered his advice, most GOP congressional candidates are ignoring it, a Washington Post analysis of more than a million social media posts by politicians found. Republican candidates are sticking to their own messages, not Trump's, as they navigate an increasingly difficult political landscape marked by high consumer prices, a protracted war in Iran and a president whose own approval rating has stayed stubbornly low, the analysis shows."
According to the Post journalists, many GOP candidates are not using the Republican Midterm Convention as their blueprint even though Trump wants them to.
"Trump had proposed the unprecedented midterm convention as a way to rally the party's supporters, who have been unenthusiastic about voting, according to polls," according to Morse, Schneider and Meyer. "The Post analysis suggests Republican candidates, for the most part, have not attempted to harness whatever direction came out of the two-day convention in Dallas. At the start of the year, Republican politicians mentioned Trump or the MAGA movement in about 1 in 6 of their online posts or podcasts … Some Republican candidates have removed mentions of Trump from their websites, while candidates in many competitive races declined to attend the convention. And the candidates still talking substantially about Trump after the convention are Democrats, who are mentioning him in about 20 percent of their posts so far this week."
The reporters add, "Trump's marquee proposal — a pledge to send $5000 payments to American citizens if Republicans keep their majorities in Congress — attracted widespread attention during and after he announced it in his September 10 speech from the convention floor. But Democrats were more likely than Republicans to discuss the plan, with most attacking it as an unfulfillable, corrupt promise."