Republican campaigns are keeping President Donald Trump at arm’s length as they try to hang onto their seats in Congress, a new report alleges.
Republicans were widely expected to lose their narrow majority in the House even before Trump launched his unpopular war with Iran and high gas prices. Now, lawmakers are planning to run for re-election without touting their ties to Trump, Reuters reports.
A strategy discussed during a closed-door meeting featuring top conservative officials, including White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, pushed lawmakers to speak about Trump’s tax cuts, not their loyalty to Trump or his unpopular war with Iran.
This, Republicans hope, will allow them to capitalize on Trump’s ability to turn out low-propensity voters while avoiding making the 2026 midterms a referendum on the president, sources told Reuters.
Strategists reportedly expressed concern that if Trump makes himself the focus of a candidate’s campaign, especially in a competitive race, it could tank that Republican’s chances.
One Trump adjacent political strategist told Reuters that Democrats “are going to try to nationalize the election and say we’re a rubber stamp for Trump.”
“We have to break out of that and show race by race why we’re the better choice,” they said.
The White House did not immediately respond to the Daily Beast’s request for comment. In a statement to Reuters, White House spokesperson Olivia Wales said Trump was the “unequivocal leader of the Republican party” and was “committed to maintaining Republicans’ majority in Congress.”
Wiles convened top GOP strategists to the Washington Waldorf Astoria—Trump’s one-time hotel in the capital—to discuss their 2026 game plan.
White House officials reportedly expressed confidence that Virginia’s Demcratic-led redistrict measure would fail at the ballot box, but it ultimately passed, resulting in a major loss for the GOP.
“If the people framing this approach are confident about Virginia and they get beat in Virginia, you have to question, are they overconfident about the whole package?” one of the people familiar with the meeting told Reuters.
Republicans are reportedly now looking to emphasize local issues rather than prioritize loyalty to the president—a break from the GOP’s past campaign strategy.
“The politics have changed,” one strategist told Reuters. “In January, nationalizing the race around him made some sense.”
The strategist added, “Voters don’t feel the president is doing enough to make their lives cheaper. But they still believe Republicans want to do that.”
