‘Everything will fall apart’: Republicans confront how to shift midterm strategy amid Iran war

By Adam Cancryn, CNN

(CNN) — The White House had long circled Tax Day as the unofficial start to a critical midterm campaign meant to highlight how much money the administration was putting back in voters’ pockets.

Then President Donald Trump launched a costly war in Iran, sent gas prices soaring and singlehandedly upended months of careful political planning — raising the odds of an electoral wipeout that could cost Republicans control of Congress.

Now, Trump officials are scrambling to salvage their strategy on the fly, hoping they can still convince skeptical Americans that they’re doing better under Trump than before. The White House has also sought new ideas for taking on rising prices, such as accusing gas station operators of seizing on the war to gouge consumers at the pump.

But seven months out from midterm elections, many Republicans privately concede their standing is deteriorating and chances of holding the House are slipping away. Any possibility of averting sweeping losses in the House — and possibly even the Senate — in November rests first on Trump quickly extracting himself from Iran, a task he’s clearly struggling mightily to accomplish.

“We need to get on offense. We need a message,” said one Trump adviser. “But right now, everything’s on hold until the war’s over.”

The darkening outlook for the Republican Party is far from what Trump and his top advisers envisioned only a few months ago, when they’d coalesced around a plan to pivot sharply toward affordability as the midterms drew closer. And it underscores the significant damage that Trump has done to his party’s chances by abruptly plunging the US into a war with Iran with no clear way out.

The conflict’s ripple effects over the last seven weeks may have negated nearly all the economic progress that the GOP planned to run on, more than a half-dozen Republicans told CNN — including strides made toward lowering gas prices, easing inflation and bolstering Americans’ sense of financial security.

Trump, who senior aides once vowed would hit the road nearly every week to tout accomplishments and boost down-ballot candidates, has instead remained largely tethered to Washington and focused on foreign affairs. When he travels to Nevada on Thursday, it will mark his first swing-state rally in more than a month. (GOP operatives still believe he will significantly ramp up his travel for House and Senate candidates this fall.)

The president will also arrive in Las Vegas at the weakest point in his political career, with recent polls putting his approval rating near historic lows amid voter anger over the economy and the war.

“There’s direct correlation between presidential job approval and the party’s midterm performance. It’s not much more complicated than that,” said GOP pollster Whit Ayres. “They’re frustrated and unhappy, and that’s been the case for some time, but it’s especially the case now.”

In a statement, White House spokesman Kush Desai argued that Trump’s economic policies would benefit Americans over the long term, arguing that his accomplishments “go beyond a one-time tax refund check.”

“Tens of millions of working-class Americans have more money in their pockets thanks to President Trump’s signature provisions,” he said, adding that the agenda is “laying the groundwork for more historic success.”

Congressional GOP leaders insist they’re not panicking either, arguing that doomsday scenarios where they could lose both the House and Senate aren’t yet materializing — and that Republicans still hold a fundraising advantage that could grow even larger if Trump deploys the massive war chest he controls through his MAGA Inc. super PAC.

The situation has nevertheless fanned fears across other parts of the GOP that a wider swath of seats in both the House, and possibly the Senate, could now be in play — already an acute anxiety given a series of brutal recent special election performances.

In recent weeks, some frustrated Republican lawmakers have privately vented concerns that the White House is underestimating the sheer scale of the challenge created by the war, two people familiar with the discussions said. It’s unclear whether those complaints have reached Trump directly.

“At a certain point, there’s going to have to be a message shift from the administration if (the war) doesn’t look like it’s something we can just get out of,” one GOP campaign operative said.

Still, that worry hasn’t yet translated into any major shift in approach — in large part because Trump’s repeated assertions that the fight is nearly over have kept his party in a holding pattern. The war has already dragged past the president’s original estimate of four to six weeks, and Trump’s embrace of a two-week ceasefire has done nothing to relieve the economic pain.

In a meeting of Senate Republicans earlier this week, Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina urged his colleagues to amplify the average $250-per-month in extra take-home pay that Americans are estimated to see in their tax refund from Trump’s policies, presenting internal polling that showed key voting blocs were “overwhelmingly motivated by cost-of-living concerns,” according to a copy obtained by CNN.

“Everything gets more complicated the longer this goes on because there’s more uncertainty,” said a GOP campaign operative. “But we can’t deviate from the plan because then everything will fall apart.”

There’s at least one source of comfort for Trump’s orbit: political advisers closely tracking the war’s impact on public opinion are seeing little improvement in voters’ views of the Democratic Party, even as they’ve soured on the GOP. That’s given them some hope that voters unhappy with the current conditions might still be persuaded to turn out for Republicans if they see improvements in November, two people familiar with the internal discussions said.

Trump advisers have urged Republicans to play up the contrast between the two parties’ platforms as a result, arguing that lawmakers should promote their own policies while also casting themselves as bulwarks against Democrats’ ability to advance a far more progressive agenda.

“That’s the question: Who’s gonna be in charge?” the Trump adviser said. “The best thing we have going for us is that the Democrats are worse.”

There’s another major argument the GOP will soon debut, too. If Republicans fail to protect their majorities in Congress, they’ll argue, Trump will face the threat of yet another impeachment battle — a message they believe will be crucial to turning out the MAGA most faithful, according to multiple Republicans involved in congressional campaigns.

Still, with the war ongoing and key costs rising, though, there’s broad acknowledgment that attacking Democrats only amounts to a partial argument from the party that controls the White House and Congress.

In the meantime, Trump officials have sought fresh ways for blunting the blowback over gas prices, including publicly taking gas station operators to task for failing to quickly lower their prices whenever the broader price of oil declines, the Trump adviser said.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hinted at that jawboning tactic on Wednesday, warning that the administration would be “watching the gas stations.” Yet during that same appearance, he conceded that prior assurances that prices would return to pre-war levels by summer were too rosy, and that the timing was now “going to be up to how the negotiations go” with Iran.

“They were counting on the tax refunds to power the economy and to have inflation under control, and on both fronts, they have some concerns,” said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, president of the right-leaning American Action Forum and a longtime GOP economic adviser.

As for Trump, simply getting him back on the road and holding rallies this week amount to a solid first step, Republicans said. After Nevada, he’s slated to make another stop in Arizona Friday.

But there’s little guarantee he’ll end up on message once he gets there. On Monday, the White House staged an encounter between Trump and a DoorDash delivery driver meant to promote his largely popular “no tax on tips” policy.

But any attention the tax provision may have gotten was soon swamped by Trump’s off-the-cuff decision to expound on the blockade he’d just imposed on Iran and try to explain away a controversial late night social media post depicting him as a Jesus-like figure.

“Naval blockades and the president’s divinity,” Holtz-Eakin said afterward. “Not exactly what they had planned.”

Sarah Ferris and Alayna Treene contributed to this report.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.