U.S. President Donald Trump attends a maternal health event in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., May 11, 2026. REUTERS Evelyn Hockstein
While many Senate and House Republicans would prefer to distance themselves from President Donald Trump, the unpopular president is determined to keep his face in the news—and apparently willing to risk his health to do it.
Trump is now 80 years old, but the New Republic reports he intends to travel almost every day from now until the election, in a move that “will surely make” the already snoozy president “pass out,” according to writer Ellie Quionlan Houghtaling.
“Donald Trump is planning to hit the campaign trail for 32 days before the midterm elections,” said Houghtaling. “That would put the president on the campaign trail for more than 94 percent of the time between now and November 3, effectively placing Trump at the center of an election cycle in which Republican candidates have increasingly tried to peel away from his influence.”
The break-neck pace of the schedule, said Houghtaling, has also “spurred health concerns for a president who was recently caught out of breath after descending a set of stairs and climbing into his limo.”
Meanwhile many pro-MAGA personalities are preferring to break from Trump and his and “curry favor with their local electorates,” said Houghtaling, who citied a list that includes Florida Representatives Maria Elvira Salazar and Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds. It also includes Maine Republican gubernatorial candidate Bobby Charles, and Texas Republican congressional candidate Carlos De La Cruz.
“Some hopeful office-seekers have even stripped their websites and campaign materials of Trump’s name, taking advice that the White House offered in July when staffers explicitly encouraged midterm-bound Republicans to split from Trump and his sinking reputation,” reports Houghtaling.
Trump’s hugely unpopular Iran war and its subsequent fuel price increases, as well as the rising cost of living and broken supply chain issues from the war and Trump’s tariffs, are making Trump a pariah among many voters. And he’s posing a liability in many swing states and even complicating some reliably red state races.
The cost of health care, and the encroachment of AI and the industry’s data centers into American communities is also proving to be a painful topic among voters, and it doesn’t help that Trump keeps siding with AI industrialists over local opposition.
Houghtaling points out that a recent Reuters/Ipsos poll reveals Trump’s influence to be dropping, even among Republicans. Just 13 percent of Americans strongly approve of the president, he said. And just 35 percent of surveyed conservatives said they “strongly approved” of Trump’s job during his second term, according to Reuters/Ipsos. In the same poll, 41 percent of registered voters said that they would vote for a Democratic candidate if the presidential election were conducted today.
