With roughly a month to Election Day, midterms races across the country are heating up. What do Democrats and Republicans need to do to win over voters in the final stretch? Today, Post Opinions writers identify four strategies the GOP should pursue. Later this week, another set of writers will do the same for the Democratic Party.
Carine Hajjar: Stop supporting socialist policies
When the fundamentals aren’t on your side in an election, it’s time to turn to the opposite side’s weakness. And with gas prices up, foreign entanglements ever-tangled and President Donald Trump’s approval abysmally low, it makes sense for Republicans to run on Democrats’ biggest weakness: the rise of radicalism in their party.
But there, too, Trump is making a headache for the GOP. Because even as Republicans position themselves as the bulwark against the left’s socialists, Trump won’t quit acting like one of them.
And I’m not talking about the photo ops with New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani, Venezuela’s illegitimate leader Delcy Rodríguez and Chinese President Xi Jinping — all over the span of one week, I might add. The president is actually governing like a socialist.
Where to begin? There’s the protectionism. Then there’s the socialist strongman tactics, such as kicking unfavorable press out of the White House. There’s the administration’s growing corporate portfolio. And, of course, the classic socialist maneuver: promising voters cash in exchange for their support at the polls. So if groups like the National Republican Congressional Committee want Democrats to have to “explain away their radical socialist record,” they might ask the leader of their party to do the same.
Jim Geraghty: Disagree with Trump? Tell voters.
The most recent Marquette Law School national survey from early September found that Trump’s approval rating on his handling of the economy was 28 percent, and his approval rating on the Iran war was 26 percent. His approval rating on inflation was 19 percent. Those numbers won’t change much between now and Nov. 3.
So, if you’re a Republican running this year, follow the lead of Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-Florida) and spend the last five weeks of this campaign spelling out your differences with Trump. “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far,” Salazar said in a commercial. “The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today.”
If you oppose the tariffs and trade war with Canada, say that. If you think Trump is spending too much time on the White House ballroom and his victory arch and not enough time on issues relating to affordability, say so. If you think Russian oligarchs shouldn’t be paying for Donald Trump Jr.’s wedding party, say that. Yes, you run the risk of a Truth Social diatribe, but that will probably only help you with the majority of voters who are fed up with the president’s performance. Endlessly placating Trump’s bad instincts and his erratic temperament has gotten you into this mess. Continuing the same approach won’t get you out of it.
Dominic Pino: Hit Democrats on Medicare-for-all
Republicans are famous for failing on health care, whether it was the “repeal and replace” nonevent on Obamacare or Trump’s “concepts of a plan” that never seem to advance to an actual plan. But several Democrats have massively overextended themselves by proposing Medicare-for-all, and Republicans have an easy opportunity to point out what that policy would actually mean.
As Ramesh Ponnuru pointed out in his column last month, Medicare-for-all means employer-sponsored-insurance-for-none, and most Americans with employer-sponsored insurance like their policies. The broad-based taxes necessary to support Medicare-for-all would also fall on the millions of Medicaid recipients who get health insurance at near-zero direct cost. Then, there’s the problem that the government already has a hard time paying for Medicare-for-seniors, and there’s no actual Democratic proposal with the math worked out to fund the enormous expansion. “My opponent wants to take away the insurance you currently have and doesn’t even know what to replace it with” is the kind of thing that Democrats usually say about Republicans, but Republicans could turn it around on Democrats.
Robert Gebelhoff: Start a new political movement
Republicans are increasingly distancing themselves from Trump to minimize what is likely to be a colossal wallop in November. I suppose that’s wise, but their challenge is so much bigger than that. They really should be thinking about the midterms as their first foray into the post-Trump era.
Trump is a political paradox. When he’s at the top of the ticket, he’s a turnout machine. When he’s not, he’s a human anchor. Despite all of Trump’s musings about a third term, his name will never appear on a ballot again.
I suspect Republicans haven’t internalized this yet. Like the Democratic Party, which was lured into a false sense of security during the Obama years, the GOP seems to believe that the Trump coalition will outlast the man who made it. That’s a fantasy. It’s heartening to see some sparks of independent thinking in the party. But Republicans will need to do more than just criticize Trump or oppose his unpopular policies. They’ll need to forge a new political movement with its own ideological engine. That’s a tall order for a party that’s spent a decade sacrificing its convictions on the altar of Trump.
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