On Thursday, new reporting by the Wall Street Journal revealed that many congressional Republicans are feeling a bad case of “Trump fatigue” as “resentment and worries” about President Donald Trump’s leadership grow. According to the Journal, “While many GOP lawmakers are embracing the president, others have started to sound the alarm publicly and privately that Trump’s low approval ratings could drag the party down in November. They say resentment is building as Trump focuses more on legacy construction projects and fights with allies than on helping Republicans keep control of Congress.”
“Some of the things he’s done, it smells like chaos, it smells destructive,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R–NE), who is retiring. He singled out Trump’s recent executive order renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America,” calling it a “silly” own goal by the president, declaring, “Most people think it’s dumb.” Bacon has pushed Republicans facing tight races to distance themselves from Trump on unpopular issues like tariffs. Faced with the potential for Trump’s wrath, Bacon said he understands why “it’s hard to say, ‘I disagree and I’m going to vote that way,’” but argued, “You’ve got to do it.”
He’s not the only Republican expressing such sentiments. As the Journal explained, “Rep. Stephanie Bice (R-OK) made headlines last week when she was recorded speaking to a group of student Republicans at Oklahoma State University, warning that Republican voters could stay home or even vote for Democrats. According to the Bulwark, which obtained the recording, Bice quoted a business executive who told her that he was a longtime Republican but now has ‘Trump fatigue.’”
And according to retiring Rep. Dan Newhouse (R-WA.), who voted to impeach Trump in 2021, the president “certainly has a strong following, but times are tough.” He agreed that voter exhaustion with Trump is a “legitimate concern” for the GOP. “We need people to turn out,” Newhouse said. “I can see Republicans not being as motivated as Democrats this year.”
Even some who say they’ll stand by Trump recognize the problem and are willing to admit they’re not always happy with him. Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R–NJ) told the Journal, “I’m not that shallow. If you’re my friend and you get in a little bit of trouble, I’m not going to run away from you. I think you can at the same time say, ‘Yes, he’s done a lot of good and there’s a lot of things I’m committed to, but there are some things I absolutely disagree with.’”
Trump loyalists like House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), however, “pointed to Trump as the main reason he remains optimistic about Republicans’ midterm chances, and he has touted legislative victories including last year’s tax law and funding for securing the border.” According to Johnson, “We’ve got a strong hands-on president, and his record speaks for itself.”
Johnson is right in some regards. Trump has put himself at the center of GOP midterm messaging, saying at a recent rally, “‘Pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot.” And for a long time, Republican candidates who ran under Trump’s endorsement did tend to win. That hasn’t been the case lately, however, as over the past few months, Republicans running under the MAGA banner have been defeated repeatedly. Now Trump holds a historically low approval rating, and the GOP is forecasted to take major losses in the midterms.
For Republicans, wrote political analyst Charlie Cook, the founder of Cook Political Report, “the three most plausible outcomes are that it will be bad, really bad, or truly horrible.”
