After driving North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis into retirement, Trump visited the state on Wednesday to campaign for GOP nominee Michael Whatley, who is trailing Democrat Roy Cooper in the polls.
“I’m asking you to just pretend I’m on the ballot just one more time,” the president told the crowd. Trump has made this request of GOP voters repeatedly in recent weeks, including at last week’s midterm convention in Texas.
But there’s a problem: When Trump was on the ballot in 2024, he did not help swing-state Republicans down that ballot.
In many states, thousands of Trump voters went to the ballot box, pulled the proverbial or literal lever for him and left without voting for other Republicans.
In 2024, Trump won all seven swing states: Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Michigan and Nevada. Of those seven, all but two (Georgia and North Carolina) had Senate races. And of those five, the GOP won one: Pennsylvania, by about 15,000 votes out of close to 7 million. As for the House, Republicans lost two seats.
This was not just due to split-ticket voting. In many states, thousands of Trump voters went to the ballot box, pulled the proverbial or literal lever for him and left without voting for other Republicans.
And that’s before we factor in an aging former President Joe Biden, who had a disastrous public debate and quit the race. After that decision, unprecedented in American history, Vice President Kamala Harris struggled to define herself and her campaign on short notice. From immigration to crime to inflation, not one issue was in favor of the incumbent Democratic Party. All of this was historic, and historically bad for Democrats.
In that political atmosphere, the shock of 2024 was not that Trump won, but how little he won by. Had results swung one point toward Harris in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, she would be called “Madame President.” And Trump could not carry fellow Republicans to a wider victory in a year that simply could not have been worse for Democrats.
The pendulum continues to swing in American politics, and it blindsides politicians who deny what Americans see every day.
Now in 2026, after saying he’d lower prices, they’re even higher. He took the country into a war of choice with Iran, which is divisive even among the MAGA base. An end to the conflict, let alone victory, is proving elusive. Republicans previously cited high gas prices as putting incredible stress on working people and American families. On Election Day 2024, the average price of gas was $3.10 per gallon. As of Friday, it is $4.47 — and rising.
Meanwhile, Trump has traded stocks by the thousands and pursued a myriad of vanity projects, from arches and ballrooms to fountains and helipads. Even Trump’s signature issue of immigration enforcement, once his strongest in polling, is now poisonous with the public due to the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s aggressive behavior. Today Trump’s average approval rating is in the mid to high 30s, and headed down. The winning collation of 2024, with its gains among independents, the young and Black and Hispanic voters, is crumbling.
In place of a legislative agenda, the president has even tried to promise Americans a $5,000 “dividend.” Even if this pledge weren’t as mythical as his other promised checks, this inflationary approach to affordability is like trying to treat emphysema with a carton of Marlboros.
The pendulum continues to swing in American politics, and it blindsides politicians who deny what Americans see every day. We are a bitterly divided nation and anything is possible in the midterms. But if Trump could not help swing state Republicans in 2024, it is incredibly hard to think 2026 will somehow be better for the president and his party.
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