Republicans are starting to panic, as President Donald Trump continues to detonate any efforts by candidates to address the affordability crisis hitting the country.
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The Financial Times cited Republican strategist Kevin Madden, a senior partner at the consulting firm Penta Group, who lamented that lawmakers go back to their districts and talk about issues that matter most to voters, only for Trump to blow up all that good work, the Daily Beast reported on Monday.
“Members are going back to their districts each week, confronting concerns about affordability and inflation, and you have Trump openly dismissing those affordability concerns,” Madden said. “That has to change.”
Trump’s deepening unpopularity is on track to drag the party toward major losses in the midterm elections by alienating independent voters and depressing discouraged MAGA turnout. The GOP is already expected to struggle in November, as the president’s party in power has historically lost seats in midterms. Now, as Republicans continue to get dragged down by Trump, Democrats look poised to win the House and Senate back.
Millions of Americans are worried about the rising energy costs (both home and fuel), inflation, tariffs driving up costs and wages that aren’t keeping up with any of it. Meanwhile, Trump is calling the fears of voters a hoax while trying to pretend everything he’s done has been amazing.
Things only got worse when Trump began insulting his own rural voters as “backwards and poor” for not supporting A.I. data centers.
In a post to Truth Social, Trump wrote, “The only reason that communities throughout the U.S.A. should not want Data Centers is if they want to end up being backwards and poor. If we kill the Golden Goose, you will only have yourselves to blame.”
Trump’s attempt to change the tide came too late, however. Communities in red states are going so far as to recall their local leaders who approved data centers.
A recent Gallup poll found that 63 percent of Republicans opposed building an AI data center in their local area, compared with 75 percent of Democrats. Among Republicans, 39 percent were strongly opposed.
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Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), usually a Trump ally, sarcastically responded to Trump’s remark by saying, “I guess I’m backwards and poor.”
The most recent example comes from his six-month war in Iran, which has driven up gas prices. But when asked about it lately, Trump called it nothing more than “small potatoes.” Meanwhile, the price of potatoes has increased slightly since Dec. 2025, Mirco Trends shows.
Even Republican lawmakers were furious with Trump’s claim, “It’s not a big thing.”
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), perhaps one of the most endangered lawmakers in Congress, distanced himself from Trump’s claim.
“Any time you are at war or in a military escalation, it is certainly not small potatoes,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday. “It is serious. I think we all recognize that.”
As Trump and his administration head to Dallas, Texas, for a midterm election convention, dozens of lawmakers are staying away. Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), for example, wants nothing to do with the event. He told Politico in November he’s worried about what the president might say.
On Monday, the Daily Beast reported that the GOP is so worried about empty seats that they’re desperately sending out text messages giving away free tickets. The Republican National Committee said that elected Republicans and candidates must pay $25,000 to attend the event. That cost gets them 2 tickets, hotel room “access” in the NRCC block, and two spots at the chairman’s welcome reception; it does not include the hotel rooms themselves, Axios reported last week.
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Now, the Beast reported, they can’t even give tickets away.
