A White House moving fast, and not especially cautiously

The White House is starting to sound a little less like a political operation and a little more like a machine built to keep moving no matter what bumps appear in the road. That, at least, is how some people around the administration describe the president’s current approach as his approval numbers soften and Republicans begin to sweat about next year’s midterms.

“So many of the calculations that the administration is taking are not political,” said one person close to the White House, granted anonymity to speak frankly about the unease inside the building. “For all the political people out here, like me and others that are like, ‘okay, guys, but what about the election?’ It doesn’t seem like they’re operating or executing the administration’s policies with an election on their mind.”

That frustration is growing at the same time Trump has not quite delivered the domestic, campaign-style pivot that chief of staff Susie Wiles previewed months ago. Instead of spending more time selling his economic agenda, the president has pulled the country into another deeply unpopular war, triggering backlash from loud MAGA corners upset by what they see as a clear drift from the America First script.

Gas prices, meanwhile, are climbing again, which is awkward for a White House that not long ago relied on lower gasoline costs as a key answer to Democratic attacks on affordability. Politics, as ever, remains a fan of bad timing.

A very different mood from a year ago

This is a sharp reversal from the tone inside Trump’s orbit a year ago, when the president and his team were openly confident about the midterms and willing to use every lever of power to help the party.

“We think we can have four years,” one Trump adviser said then, capturing the belief inside the campaign shop that Republicans could avoid the usual midterm punishment. “We reject the defeatist attitude of operating from the perspective that this is our only shot and we only got two years.”

That confidence has given way to a far less relaxed reality. Trump’s style, which is nothing if not instinct-driven, could end up making the very scenario he fears more likely: a Democratic-controlled Congress in the final two years of his term.

A second person close to the White House suggested the president may simply understand that the period of full Republican control in Washington is closing, whether he wants to say so publicly or not.

“The House is not saveable, most likely,” the person said. “The president doesn’t admit that publicly, but he certainly knows that it isn’t.”

A senior administration official pushed back on that fatalism, saying it was “far too early to say” whether the House would flip.

“Ultimately this is going to be decided in November, and sitting here in March trying to make predictions about how things are going to be in November is a fool’s errand,” the official said. “And the primary measure of how the party is going to do in the midterms is the generic ballot, and the generic ballot is in a tolerable position right now.”

The numbers are not exactly comforting

The generic ballot may be in a “tolerable position,” but the broader picture is less friendly. Democrats continue to lead by five points there, and Republicans are also seeing warning signs in polling from key states.

In Wisconsin, a swing state Trump won in 2024, his approval rating fell to 42 percent last week in a Marquette Law School survey.

Charles Franklin, the pollster behind the survey, said Trump’s numbers in the state are in rough shape.

“Trump’s net job approval in Wisconsin this month is the lowest it’s ever been in the first or the second term. He’s in a lot worse shape today than he was at the beginning of the year, especially with independents,” Franklin said.

“Anytime you see an approval getting in the low 30s or even below, you have to say this is a huge warning sign.”

That warning sign is not exactly subtle. It tends to show up right around the time lawmakers start thinking about whether they still want to be in the majority.

Trump acknowledged the classic midterm drag on incumbents on Wednesday, though he was not exactly in a mood to dwell on it.

“For whatever reason, I don’t know what it is, but a president who wins, Republican or Democrat, almost always does poorly in the midterms,” he said at a House GOP campaign dinner. “Nobody knows why, even if it’s a successful presidency. And there are those that say this has been the first, I mean, really, the best first year ever for a president. And I agree with them.”

'YOLO mode' meets midterm math

Fourteen months into a second term shaped by heightened ambition and very little internal pushback, Trump is still operating in what one could generously call full-speed-ahead mode. Less generously, it looks like the instincts of a president who does not have to worry about re-election and is therefore in no hurry to pretend otherwise.

That has Republicans nervous.

“Republicans were always going to be in a difficult situation in the midterms,” said one person close to Trump’s senior team who served in his first term. “But he’s taking it from a difficult situation to being almost impossible for Republicans.”

Trump has tried to shape the midterms in more structural ways. Last year, he pushed a failed redistricting effort meant to create more safe Republican House seats. More recently, he has pushed to restrict mail voting and tighten voter ID rules, part of a broader effort to make the system more favorable to his party.

His elections overhaul bill, the SAVE America Act, is one of his declared top priorities, but it has no realistic path through the Senate. Trump has also barely mentioned a housing proposal that would restrict institutional investors from buying homes. That measure faces resistance in the House, but it could hand Republicans a useful affordability message before November.

The decision not to lean harder on the housing bill looks, at minimum, like a missed opportunity to talk about consumer costs in a way voters might actually notice. The administration has already shown a certain talent for setting aside politically useful economic relief in favor of bigger, messier overhauls that are still waiting for their grand payoff.

The White House says the SAVE America Act is designed to address concerns voters care about.

“The president has been absolutely clear that the SAVE America Act is his absolute highest legislative priority, and he’s going to keep pushing forward for that. But that doesn’t mean he has no other policy preferences or priorities to work on that can address different areas of concern,” the senior administration official said. “Obviously, if you’re thinking about things from a midterm context, the security and safety of the midterm elections is of paramount importance.”

The political fallout is spreading

Trump’s reluctance to make more endorsements has also stirred anxiety. He has declined to weigh in on the Texas GOP primary, which has moved to a runoff, leaving incumbents and challengers alike to wonder whether the president plans to help either Sen. John Cornyn or Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

That sort of ambiguity is not helping anyone who would prefer a little orderly party management before the campaign season gets loud.

At the same time, Trump is dealing with backlash from within his own base over the Iran war. In Texas on Friday, at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference gathering, MAGA loyalist men vented their frustration, especially over Iran.

One 30-year-old Iraq and Afghanistan war veteran wearing an “America First” hat told POLITICO that Trump “lied about everything” and said there is “no clear objective” for Iran.

More than six in 10 voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the war, and analysts expect the conflict to continue affecting energy prices even if a deal ends the fighting in the coming days or weeks.

Higher consumer prices tied to the war, along with Iran’s closure of the Strait of Hormuz, are likely to offset some of the economic benefits expected this year from the giant spending and tax package passed last year, the so-called One Big Beautiful Bill. Meanwhile, the administration’s recent focus on the war, plus the president’s more personal interests, including White House and Kennedy Center renovation projects, has crowded out the kind of pocketbook messaging Republicans usually like to have ready before voters start asking about rent, groceries and gas.

“I think they’re jumping from one thing to the next without thinking of the political aggregate, because it no longer mattered,” one person close to the administration said. “When the politics of it all just started falling apart with redistricting, the YOLO was kind of what do we have to lose? If we’re going to do it, why not now?”

A second person close to the White House said Trump sees Iran in almost entirely non-electoral terms.

“He’s going to do what he thinks needs to be done. He’s convinced it needs to be done,” the person said, adding that his thinking is “divorced from the midterms largely.”

Approval problems that matter where it counts

A new Ipsos poll this week found that just 29 percent of Americans approve of Trump’s handling of the economy. That is a lower number than former President Joe Biden ever hit during a term defined by stubborn inflation.

Trump’s overall approval rating has fallen to 36 percent, a level that has historically been associated with serious midterm losses. That is not the kind of number that inspires confidence on a campaign trail, unless the campaign trail is being used as a stress test.

Lawmakers heading into November will face voters who are still focused on costs and want concrete plans that improve their finances. They are looking to the White House for messages that can help them defend the party’s record on affordability.

The administration says that message is already there.

“I would start with the one big, beautiful bill. I would start with the extraordinary progress the president’s made on the economy,” the senior administration official said. “And I would continue with the fact that we have every confidence that the president will sign a housing bill, and that the administration has consistently strongly supported the Senate housing bill.”

Whether voters are convinced is another matter. That, inconveniently, is usually the part that decides midterms.