Our forthcoming book is The Comeback: The 2024 Elections and American Politics. It includes a chapter on congressional and state elections.
The verdict is in: President Donald Trump's voters are lively when he's running for the White House. They're downright lethargic when he's not.
Why it matters: This is not just the assessment of Democrats. It's coming straight from the vice president and leaders of the MAGA movement. And it can have massive implications for the results of key gubernatorial races this year and for next year's midterms.
Catch up quick: Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate in Wisconsin's Supreme Court race, lost by 10 points in a 50-50 state. Trump endorsed Brad Schimel, and Elon Musk bankrolled millions of dollars in ads and events, swooping into Wisconsin the weekend before Election Day to juice turnout.While Republicans won two House special elections in Florida by about 15 points, those were drops from over 30-point margins in the same districts just last November.
Zoom out: Low-propensity, working-class voters helped fuel Trump's 2024 win.But MAGA luminaries are fretting that those same voters only turn out when Trump's name is on the ballot, making the GOP base less intimidating in off-year races and putting narrow congressional majorities at risk.
Vice President Vance wrote on X: "The political problem on the Republican side of the aisle is how to get our base to vote in off-cycle elections. We've seen the establishment (finally) accept Donald Trump's leadership of the Republican Party. Now it's time to try to actually learn from his political success."
While many of the president’s allies are sympathetic to his argument that the tariffs will encourage companies to invest in domestic manufacturing and production, they fear that imposing new trade barriers will cause short-term economic harm, drive up prices, potentially throw the U.S. into a recession, and jeopardize Republicans’ chances of hanging onto control of Congress in the midterms.
Just four in 10 voters view Trump’s handling the economy and trade favorably, according to an AP-NORC poll conducted in late March.
