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Republicans in swing-seat House districts are welcoming President Trump to their districts and embracing him as the leader of the party despite his underwater approval ratings.
It is a somewhat surprising move for vulnerable lawmakers who might be expected to distance themselves from the president for fear of alienating critical swing voters.
Trump is not popular, according to polls; he has just a 40 percent approval rating in the Real Clear Politics polling average.
National Republican strategists, though, see using the president’s popularity with the GOP base as a way to boost turnout and defy historical midterm trends that foretell losses for the president’s party. Republicans can afford only a handful of losses and retain their slender majority.
“We want to have the largest electorate possible. We showed in 2024 that when everybody comes out to vote in a presidential election, we were successful in Pennsylvania,” Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-Pa.), a first-term congressman who flipped his seat in 2024, told The Hill.
“I flipped a seat. Dave McCormick flipped a Senate seat. President Trump won. We want large voter turnout, and so in an election like this, we know from past elections that President Trump does drive Republican turnout, and so we would like to see everybody getting out to vote,” Mackenzie said.
At a rally in Mackenzie’s district in June, Trump shouted out several other Republican congressmen in attendance who represent safe seats.
“I’m not here for them. I’m here for him,” Trump said, referring to Mackenzie, before inviting him to “run up” on stage for brief remarks and joking that no one wanted to hear from him — only Trump.
Trump also kicked off the 2026 midterm cycle with a January rally in Iowa that included opening messages from Iowa GOP Reps. Zach Nunn and Mariannette Miller-Meeks, both of whom represent toss-up districts. Nunn’s campaign put out a video of his rally comments cut with footage of him and Trump greeting Iowans in a restaurant.
Swing-seat Rep. Juan Ciscomani (R-Ariz.) said that Trump has a “strong hand on the wheel putting America first” at a Turning Point USA-hosted event in April where the president also spoke.
The embrace of Trump doesn’t stop with sitting House members.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the campaign arm for the House GOP, renamed its program aimed at identifying promising Republican challengers to House Democrats from the “Young Guns” initiative to the “MAGA Majority” list.
“President Trump is the single biggest driver of Republican enthusiasm and turnout, and his agenda is delivering results that voters can see in their own communities,” NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said.
“Our candidates are eager to campaign alongside him in every corner and every competitive district across the country because there’s no stronger contrast heading into the midterms than President Trump and Republicans’ record of results versus the Democrats’ radical socialist agenda.”
The strategy is a bit of a risky shift compared to how Republicans in tough districts previously have handled their relationship with the president.
When Trump is not on the ballot, turnout by his supporters tends to fall. Lower-propensity voters who broke for Trump in the presidential election are also less likely to show up in a midterm election.
The conventional thinking, and the real risk for Republicans, is that tying Republicans in purple districts to an unpopular president will do more to motivate his opponents to vote against the Republican than it will do to boost GOP turnout.
“On issue after issue, Americans see congressional Republicans choose fealty to Trump over the interests of working families — like price hiking tariffs, Trump’s war of choice, ripping away people’s health care, and doling out tax breaks for the ultrawealthy,” Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesperson Viet Shelton said.
“Every time these same vulnerable Republicans cheerily campaign with Trump as he says he ‘loves the inflation’ and rants about ballrooms — it’s a signal to every voter that Republicans don’t work for you, they only work for Trump.”
Trump, though, has long argued Republicans are better off if they embrace him rather than push him away.
Following massive Republican losses in the 2018 “blue wave” election, Trump named a few swing-seat House members who won after having Trump in their districts, like Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) — and dinged the Republicans who lost after distancing themselves from him.
“On the other hand, you had some who decided to, ‘Let’s stay away, let’s stay away.’ They did very poorly,” Trump said the day after the midterms in 2018. He said that former Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) “could have won that race, but she didn’t want to have any embrace” — and listed several others who fell to the same fate.
It’s not just Trump’s ego driving the GOP calculus. Republican operatives see the 2026 midterm battleground map as very different from in 2018 — and much tougher for Democrats.
“For Democrats to flip the House, they must win Republican-held seats where President Trump averaged 53.2% of the vote in 2024, a dramatically tougher battlefield than the 2018 midterm cycle when Democrats flipped seats in districts where Trump averaged just 46.6% in 2016,” a June NRCC battleground memo said.
The strategy is also linked to Trump’s dominance of his party, something underscored by a series of primary battles this year.
Trump ousted Indiana state senators who defied his wishes to pursue redistricting that would favor Republicans, and defeated incumbents who clashed with him, like Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.).
The president’s early and frequent endorsements have also helped prevent Republicans he likes from facing competitive primary challenges, and cleared the field in open races — a welcome dynamic for national Republican strategists happy to save campaign cash and resources for the general election.
A few House Republicans have shown that staking out independence from Trump can lead to electoral success — such as Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.).
“Every one of us represents our own communities in this country, and we have our own relationships with our voters, and you know our own track record, our own voting record, and that’s really what’s on the ballot. It’s not anything else,” Fitzpatrick said in June, noting he was one of a few Republicans in toss-up seats who won in 2018.
Trump recently complained that Fitzpatrick “votes against me all the time,” warning that “doesn’t work out well.” His district is rated as “likely Republican” by the Cook Political Report this year.
And some Republicans who welcome Trump to their districts are toeing a careful line.
Trump in May held a rally in Rep. Mike Lawler’s (R-N.Y.) district. During the rally, Lawler, who represents a toss-up seat, noted Trump’s 2024 electoral strength in his Rockland County — and thanked the president for his support for lifting the cap on the state and local tax deduction in the GOP’s signature tax bill last year.
Asked in June about campaigning with Trump as a vulnerable Republican, though, Lawler did not bear-hug the president.
“He’s the president of the United States. Many of my constituents do support him, many others don’t. Ultimately, you have to be able to engage with and deal with the presidents. Why, when Joe Biden was president and he came to my district, I showed up. Donald Trump’s president, came to my district, I showed up. You have to be able to work with the president,” Lawler told The Hill.
Add as preferred source on Google Tags Andy Barr Barbara Comstock Dave McCormick Juan Ciscomani Mariannette Miller-Meeks Ryan Mackenzie Zach NunnCopyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
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