The Republican Abandonment of Donald Trump Begins

By Jim Geraghty

Wednesday, September 23, 2026

 

It isn’t just GOP Representative María Elvira Salazar’s decision to run a commercial criticizing President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign. “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Salazar says in the ad. “The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”

 

All over the campaign trails of the 2026 midterms, you can see Republicans starting to try to distance themselves from President Trump.

 

·         Florida Republican gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds scrubbed references to Trump from his campaign website.

 

·         Donalds is following in the footsteps of GOP Representative Young Kim, who often faces tough reelection bids in her R+1 southern California district.

 

·         Michigan GOP Senate candidate Mike Rogers is running an ad that begins, “The war in Iran needs to end, to bring costs down.”

 

·         Iowa GOP representatives Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks joined in a vote to limit Trump’s war powers last week. Both lawmakers represent competitive districts, and this marked the first time either one had voted to rein in Trump’s Iran war powers. Nunn wrote on X, “With the negotiating window closed, sustained combat operations now require congressional authorization. Having deployed multiple times and flown over 700 combat hours in the Middle East, I will not support another open-ended war.”

 

·         Ashley Hinson, a GOP representative who’s running for governor in Iowa, wrote on X Monday, “Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran.”

 

·         Wisconsin GOP candidate for governor, Representative Tom Tiffany, on rising gas prices and Iran: “I just believe we should be exiting Iran, it’s time to move on. We’ve degraded their nuclear facilities, we’ve degraded their military, most of their ships are at the bottom of the ocean. Time to come home, take care of business here in America.”

 

·         In a meeting with voters, Colorado GOP Representative Jeff Hurd “talked about where he disagrees with the Trump administration. Hurd said he opposes Trump’s sweeping tariffs against Canada and a Republican push to sell public lands. He voted to extend healthcare subsidies.”

 

·         In New Hampshire:

 

When New Hampshire Republicans gathered Monday for their post-primary “Unity Breakfast” in Concord, talk of Trump was conspicuously absent. In fact, no GOP candidate who spoke at the breakfast even mentioned Trump; neither did the chairman of the state Republican Party. And whenever Trump did come up, top candidates quickly distanced themselves from him.

 

“I’ve never even met the president, but there is no question that I will be a much more effective voice with this administration,” U.S. Senate candidate John Sununu told Fox News during an interview at the breakfast.

 

It’s as if someone flipped a switch. The war in Iran is very unpopular — only about a third of Americans support it — and Congress never voted on an authorization for the use of force. Republicans on the campaign trail don’t want to act as if they support it anymore, and don’t want to get blamed for a war they had no say in starting. You may recall that when the war began, President Trump said it would last “four to five weeks,” and now we’re in the sixth month.

 

(Back in January, I wrote that Trump should have gotten a congressional authorization of use of force against Venezuela, never mind Iran. “One of the reasons it’s a good idea for presidents to get Congress to authorize the use of military force is that it makes Congress buy into the operation. The legislative branch of the government — you know, the one with the actual power to declare war — is no longer a passive spectator but is invested in the outcome of the decision to use force.” When you don’t get Congress to sign on, they feel free to abandon support at any time.)

 

For six months, President Trump has promised that gas prices would “go down tremendously” or “come roaring down” once the war ended. As of this morning, the national average for a gallon of unleaded gas is $4.47; one year ago, the price was $3.17. The national average for a gallon of diesel fuel is $6.52.

 

As of this morning, the president’s job approval rating in the RealClearPolitics average is at 39 percent, and it has been around 40 percent since March or so. When Americans go to the polls on November 3, Trump’s job approval rating will be around that level. Very little is going to change in the political and economic landscape over the next six weeks.

 

The country is infuriated about gas prices and the cost of living. Last week’s Marquette Law School Poll national survey found that Trump’s approval rating on how he’s handling the economy is at 28 percent, and his approval rating on how he’s handling the Iran war is at 26 percent. His approval rating on how he’s handling inflation is 19 percent. According to CNN’s Harry Enten, that’s the lowest any president has ever polled on the issue of inflation — lower than Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, or Joe Biden.

 

I can hear it now, “The polls are fake, all the polls are fake.” Okay. Let’s assume that Marquette survey has a bad sample or something. How high do you think the president’s approval rating on the issue of inflation is, right now? You think one in four Americans believes he’s doing a good job on inflation? One in three?

 

The standard argument from the Trump defenders is that “inflation under Biden was 9 percent!” And that’s true, but it’s also true that the 9.1 percent peak arrived in June 2022. Over the last 19 months of Biden’s presidency, the U.S. inflation rate averaged 3.09 percent. Over the first 19 months of Trump’s presidency (taking us up to last month), the average was 2.94 percent. (Note that because of the government shutdown, October 2025 CPI data was never released, but that omission is unlikely to change the Trump average by much.)

 

But don’t worry, Republicans. The president’s midterm messaging is as sharp and focused as ever:

 

All of the SLEAZEBAGS, like Third Rate “Reporter,” Kaitlan Collins, of Fake News CNN, a truly unhappy person, said they weren’t going to be covering me. Then why were they ranting and raving like Lunatics, in the Press Area, at the United Nations? Why was she there? She’s got a “TRUMP” addiction, and so does CNN and MSDNC. They’re all sick, treasonous, and demented! The “good news” is that they have a great, for them, and totally disloyal Judge. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!

 

Republicans running in 2026 have concluded they’re on their own. The president had the chance to shape the party’s image and message for the campaign season at the midterm convention, and it was all about him. And this was Trump’s way of talking up the GOP Senate nominee, Ken Paxton:

 

And by the way, you’ve got to elect Ken Paxton. You gotta do it. And I said something yesterday, and I don’t know if he’ll ever talk to me again. Perhaps he will. [Laughter] But I said it and my people said, “Please don’t say that.” So I won’t say it, but I’ll tell you what I was thinking about saying. [Laughter] I said, “I don’t like the way Ken dresses.” Although I also said he looked really sharp in that suit yesterday. I thought spiffy. And then I said, “I don’t really like the way Ken talks.” And then I said something that they really hated. “Please, sir, don’t say it, sir.” So I’m not gonna say it, but I’ll tell you what I was thinking about saying. [Laughter] I said, “I don’t really like the way he looks. I don’t like it. I don’t like any –” But you know what I do like? He was the greatest attorney general in the history of Texas. He was the greatest attorney general in the history of our country. He helped us so much with the walls, with illegal immigration, with everything. He was our greatest attorney general, and he deserves to go to the United States Senate.

 

Again, you don’t have to believe the public polling. Just watch the behavior of Republicans running.

 

And if you think the Republicans running for reelection are turning on Trump, wait until you see what the ones who aren’t running this year are doing — such as Utah Republican Senator John Curtis, who won’t be up for reelection until 2030.

 

Curtis is calling for the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate Donald Trump Jr.:

 

More recently, questions have arisen about the relationships of President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., with foreign business figures and the acceptance of significant gifts. These include a lavish wedding afterparty, on a private island, provided by Russian oligarch Umar Kremlev, who reportedly traveled to China as part of a delegation accompanying Vladimir Putin shortly before giving the gift.

 

These concerns are compounded by Donald Trump Jr.’s active promotion of family-backed cryptocurrency ventures, his continued pursuit of international real estate deals involving direct meetings with foreign heads of state, and his reported investments in defense contracting. This pattern extends to his significant financial and advisory ties to prediction market platforms that depend on favorable federal regulatory decisions being considered by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

 

Mississippi GOP Senator Roger Wicker also won’t be up for reelection until 2030:

 

Senate Armed Services Chair Roger Wicker lambasted the White House decision to invite Chinese leader Xi Jinping for a state dinner this week, calling the foreign head of state “a brutal, unelected and oppressive dictator” who cannot be trusted.

 

Wicker, typically a staunch defender of President Donald Trump and Republican loyalist, targeted most of his criticism at Xi and Chinese policy during a Senate floor speech Tuesday. But the comments were nonetheless a surprise rebuke of the president’s courting of Beijing amid broader concerns, such as the durability of U.S. security commitments to the Indo-Pacific, including in deterring a potential invasion of Taiwan from the Chinese mainland.

 

“Had the White House asked me for advice, I would have suggested the president not invite Xi Jinping to Washington for such a lavish welcome here in the United States, based on all of the troubling issues we have with President Xi and the Chinese Communist Party,” he said.

 

Some might argue that Republicans more openly criticizing Trump is the sound of impending lame-duckhood, but Trump will still run the executive branch for a bit more than two years, and have the biggest megaphone in politics. He just won’t have quite as many GOP legislators willing to assent to whatever he wants on any given day.