President Donald Trump’s decision to take a wrecking ball to the White House’s East Wing last year has become a weapon against his party in the midterm elections, a Washington Post analysis finds.
Democrats have spent at least $1.8 million on advertisements that invoke Trump’s decision to tear down part of the White House to build a new ballroom, according to a Post analysis of spending in competitive general election races. At least four of those races — including congressional seats in Pennsylvania and New York, as well as the Florida governor’s race — have seen more than $100,000 spent by Democrats or independents on the issue.
Blake Gendebien, the Democrat vying for New York’s 21st Congressional District — a seat in the northern part of the state currently held by Republican Rep. Elise Stefanik — has spent $740,000 on three such advertisements, which have collectively aired in the Adirondacks nearly 6,000 times.
“They spend billions on ballrooms, while we want groceries that won’t break the bank,” Gendebien says in one ad that began running this summer.
Dozens of other Democrats have attacked Trump’s planned ballroom and other construction projects in remarks and social media posts — and pressed Republican lawmakers on their silence or support for the president’s projects.
Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan, has repeatedly invoked the ballroom in his rallies and events, comparing Trump’s focus on that project to the rising cost of gas and groceries.
Trump is “ignoring the war in Iran that he got us into so that he can focus more on the drapes in a ballroom that we shouldn’t even be building,” El-Sayed said in a Senate debate last month.
MAGA in a nutshell: You pay $5/gal for gas while Trump wants $400M of your tax dollars for a new ballroom. https://t.co/RwyRpJaJXb
— Dr. Abdul El-Sayed (@AbdulElSayed) April 28, 2026
Most Americans oppose Trump’s construction projects around the White House and Washington. Fifty-nine percent of respondents to a Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll conducted this month said Trump was spending “too much” time on the projects compared to 27 percent of adults who said he is spending the right amount of time on the projects and 11 percent who said not enough.
Some of the president’s projects — such as his effort to rename the Kennedy Center for himself — are also opposed by a majority of Republicans.
Trump has pursued sweeping changes to Washington’s urban landscape, including a planned 250-foot-tall triumphal arch near Arlington National Cemetery, the gilding of nearby statues and renovations to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. He has also focused on revamping the White House and its grounds, including building a new helipad, redoing the surrounding lawn and renovating the public park across the street from the presidential mansion. The administration is set to spend at least $900 million on White House construction projects, according to records reviewed by The Post.
The president has also been fixated on the projects in his remarks and social media posts, repeatedly bringing up the ballroom at unrelated events such as an announcement Monday focused on women’s health, a political rally in Arizona last week and this month’s Columbus Day celebration at the White House.
“People would come from Oklahoma to see the Washington Monument. They’d come to see the Trump ballroom, let’s say, which is gorgeous, by the way,” Trump said at a rally in Oklahoma this month, riffing for a minute on the ballroom project and his new White House helipad. “And I do this, you know, it’s like, to me, it’s relaxing.”
The White House says Trump’s construction projects have not interfered with his other priorities and that Americans for generations will appreciate his work to renovate the White House and overhaul Washington.
“President Trump can walk and chew gum at the same time,” spokesman Davis Ingle said in a statement, listing initiatives such as the president’s work to lower drug prices, sign tax cuts and reduce illegal immigration. “President Trump’s commitment to restoring our Nation’s treasured landmarks does not distract from his work to lower costs, strengthen our economy, and improve the lives of American families.”
Liberal strategists and communications experts, however, say the issue has been a winner for Democrats because it shows a disconnect between the president’s priorities and average Americans’ needs.
“I think that the vanity projects — whether it’s the ballroom, the literal gilding of statues, all of it — are the clearest indication that Donald Trump does not care about the midterms and does not care about the future of the Republican Party,” said Tommy Vietor, a former adviser to President Barack Obama and co-host of “Pod Save America,” a popular liberal podcast.
The Democratic National Committee has found that posts about Trump’s projects are resonating among diverse voters on platforms such as TikTok, officials said. The DNC’s social media posts on Trump’s ballroom, triumphal arch and Reflecting Pool projects have generated almost 200 million impressions on the organization’s social media accounts this year, they said.
“Families want relief from Trump’s disastrous economy, not a president focused on gilding statues, constructing a ballroom, and putting his name on buildings,” Kendall Witmer, a DNC deputy communications director, wrote in an email.
In some cases, Republicans have worked to distance themselves from Trump’s projects but are still facing criticism.
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-New York) said earlier this year that he opposed spending taxpayer funds on the president’s ballroom, but the liberal-leaning Environmental Defense Action Fund has spent at least $170,000 on advertisements that blame Lawler for public money going to the project.
Many other Republicans have sidestepped questions on the projects, wary of incurring the president’s anger.
Asked about Democrats’ invocations of the ballroom and Trump’s other construction projects, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee criticized their “resistance tactics” and opposition.
“If the Democrats’ only message to voters is that they’ll be anti-Trump crybabies who obstruct his agenda at every turn and treat every action like a crime, then they deserve to lose again,” RNC spokeswoman Natalie Baldassarre said in a statement.
Anthony Constantino, Gendebien’s GOP rival for a New York congressional seat, said in a statement that Gendebien was wrongly focusing on the ballroom rather than liberal economic policies that Constantino said had led people to leave the state.
“That’s what people are concerned about here,” Constantino said. “They want more jobs and that’s what I will deliver.”
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