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WASHINGTON — President Trump will treat the November midterm election like a presidential campaign, his senior leadership team tells The Post — traveling like he’s on the ballot, flooding key races with cash and hammering home how his policies will help Americans with affordability.
“He’s going to campaign like it’s 2024,” Susie Wiles, Trump’s 2024 campaign co-chair turned chief of staff, told The Post.
The White House views Republican control of Congress as essential to maintain Trump’s power and agenda during his final two years in office.
Trump plans to campaign as if he’s personally on the ballot and enlist his heir apparent, Vice President JD Vance, as a regular presence on the road. Cabinet officials also will be dispatched to tout the administration’s record, senior administration officials told The Post.
The president’s first campaign-related trip of the year will be on Tuesday in Iowa, where he will deliver a speech on the economy and energy. Trump will continue to weigh in on congressional primaries — most recently backing Rep. Julia Letlow to challenge Sen. Bill Cassidy for the Louisiana Senate GOP primary.
Trump will also bring in big fundraising dollars for the party, a source said, which can funnel down to top competitive Senate races in states like Michigan, North Carolina, Georgia, and elsewhere. Control of the House will hinge on three dozen swing congressional races, including seats in California and New York.
James Blair, Trump’s 2024 political director, argues that not only does the administration have its accomplishments to sell, they also have logistics on their side to defy the historical precedent that the party in power loses in midterms.
“Since 2024 Republicans have been outperforming Democrats in voter registration in every state in the country,” he told The Post. “That’s a huge deal and has never been the case before. The number one indicator of how people are going to vote is what party they’re registering with.”
His goal for 2026 is simple: “I want to keep the House and keep the Senate. Even by one. One is a victory.”
Trump will be heavily invested, not just in campaigning but in spending some of the nearly $300 million he has tucked away in his MAGA Inc war chest.
“He’s going to behave as though he is on the ballot. So that means some spending, that means a lot of travel, that means a lot of a lot of messaging help for candidates that need and want it,” Wiles said.
An essential element of the plan is for Trump to turn out the MAGA faithful who put him in the White House — reminding them of his unfinished attempt to build a “Golden Age” legacy and citing Democrats’ agitation to impeach him yet again as emotive calls to the ballot box.
“All Republicans are not Trump voters, but the Trump voters are those who turn out. Our job is to motivate them to vote for President Trump to finish the job,” Wiles noted.
Blair agreed it was a “core” focus.
“Converting presidential voters into midterm voters is a core underlying challenge, but if we can substantially increase their participation, it will help all Republicans across the country. It’s something that we will certainly be setting out to do – it’s something that the president is very good at,” he said.
As Trump celebrates his inauguration anniversary, his eye is turning toward his second year and cementing that legacy by keeping Republicans in power in Congress. A key component of that is selling his accomplishments to the American people, explaining how his work to lower mortgage and credit card rates, prescription drug prices and gas prices helped voters.
The president has indicated his frustration that those accomplishments are not getting as much credit as he would like.
“We didn’t do as good a job as the president would like us to do in what he calls PR, what I would call is just getting our message,” a senior administration official said.
Trump grumbled about the matter on Tuesday, when he spent more than 90 minutes in the White House briefing room to tout the work of his first year in office. Before he started speaking, aides passed out 31-page packets listing all that had been accomplished in the first year.
“We’ve done a much better job than we’re able to promote,” the president noted — candidly laying out the task ahead for himself and his staff.
But Wiles argues the administration has accomplished so many things, it makes the individual sell harder.
“The first year has been full every day, full of a new accomplishment, a new victory that helps the American people. Now we have to tell the story better,” she said.
“What I want to be sure we do in the second year is go a level deeper. We accomplished so much in the first year. It’s very tangible. There’s the big, beautiful bill. There’s something for everyone. But now we have to go a little deeper,” she said.
Trump was on that message in Davos, where he touted the American economy in front of business leaders.
“President Trump accomplished more in one year than many presidents did in eight,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told The Post. “The President delivered on every major campaign promise—securing the border, stopping Biden’s inflation crisis, signing the largest middle-class tax cuts in history, ending woke DEI nonsense, and restoring American strength on the world stage.”
But history shows the party in power typically loses control of Congress in the midterm election.
Currently, Democrats lead by four points in the generic congressional ballot, according to the RealClearPolitics polling average. And that party is bullish on its chances, particularly when it comes to taking back the House.
“As Democrats, we will continue to make clear to the American people that you deserve better, and that we’re focused on driving down the high cost of living, fixing our broken health care system, and cleaning up corruption in the Congress, in the courts and in the White House, so we can actually deliver an America of the people, by the people and for the people,” House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) told reporters in November.
A former Biden White House official scoffed at the game plan to put Trump front and center.
“Best of luck!” said the longtime Democratic Party official and campaign aide.
“[Voters] are not going to let members [of Congress] slide on their price of electricity and groceries because Trump is pretending he is on the ballot.”
Republicans, however, are optimistic, particularly with the playbook they have in place, seeing it as a way to win over voters on the economy, which is their top issue.
“Six, seven months from now, when we’re really in the heated campaign season, we’re reasonably optimistic that the way people feel about the economy will be markedly improved, which will bolster the generic ballot and bolster our chances overall,” a senior administration official said.
The official also argued that Republicans “are really pretty unified, all in all, and and all rowing in the same direction, whereas the Democrats are very much involved in factional infighting that we don’t really suffer from.”
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