Republicans Panic Trump Is Dooming Them to Wipeout

Multiple Republicans are worried that the deeply unpopular Donald Trump is going to doom the GOP in the midterm elections.

Read more Trump’s ‘New America’ Fantasy Backfires Across Party Lines

The GOP is already expected to suffer major losses in November’s nationwide races, including potentially losing control of both the House and Senate.

“Members are going back to their districts each week, confronting concerns about affordability and inflation, and you have Trump openly dismissing those affordability concerns,” Kevin Madden, a Republican strategist and senior partner at Washington-based consultancy Penta Group, told the Financial Times. “That has to change.”

Trump has spent months insisting that the financial hardships experienced by tens of millions of Americans do not exist, or are even a “hoax” orchestrated by the Democrats.

The 80-year-old president has also dismissed similar concerns about his war in Iran, which has dragged on for six months with no end in sight and sent gas prices soaring across the U.S.

“It’s small potatoes for us,” Trump said in the Oval Office on Friday. “It’s not a big thing.”

Republican New York Rep. Mike Lawler was quick to distance himself from the president’s remarks about the conflict, which a significant majority of Americans disapprove of.

“Any time you are at war or in a military escalation, it is certainly not small potatoes,” Lawler, who is fighting for re-election in a competitive seat in November, told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday. “It is serious. I think we all recognize that.”

Elsewhere, Trump faced backlash from within his own party after announcing that only “backwards and poor” people object to having a data center built in their area.

Read more Trump Pushes Fuel Prices to Painful Labor Day Record

Opposition to data centers is one of the few things that appears to unite the country. A Gallup poll in May found that seven in 10 Americans said they would oppose the building of one in their local area, including nearly half (48 percent) who were strongly opposed.

Republicans also fear that any attempt by Trump to prevent an electoral wipeout in the midterms will be doomed.

This week, Trump will headline a two-day midterm convention in Dallas, Texas, in a desperate bid to energize voters. However, dozens of Republican lawmakers have confirmed that they will not attend the event, with many fearing that associating themselves with Trump so close to the midterms will severely hinder their election hopes.

Some Republicans have also expressed concerns that, rather than using the convention to boost their election hopes, Trump will waste his headline speeches talking about his obsessions, such as his $400 million White House ballroom, or dismissing voters’ affordability concerns.

“I can’t control what the president’s going to say at the convention, but I can control where I’m at, what I’m doing,” Michigan Rep. Tom Barrett, a non-attendee fighting for re-election in November, told Politico.

Doug Heye, a Republican strategist and former party official, said many Republicans are in a “very real place of discomfort” ahead of the midterms because they have tied themselves to the unpopular and erratic president but know they cannot do anything to change what he does or says.

“He’s his own favorite topic, and they can’t really do anything about it because of how he is,” Heye told the Financial Times.

An unnamed GOP official dismissed suggestions that Republicans are desperate to break with Trump, insisting the party is “rowing in the same direction.”

“With Iran and the data centers, those are obviously presenting some issues for candidates on the trail. But members are largely behind the president’s agenda,” the official said.

Read more Trump Faces Fresh Calls for Removal Over AI-Fueled Posting Frenzy