Americans still aren’t sold on President Donald Trump's economy — and many say the Iran war is making their financial situation worse.

Six months after The POLITICO Poll first found deep concern among voters, new results show Trump has been unable to improve their perception of the high cost of living and who is to blame.

In November, nearly half of Americans said the cost of living is the worst they can remember — as of May, 53 percent still say the same. In November, 46 percent of Americans said Trump holds full or most of the responsibility for the state of the economy — as of May, that number is virtually unchanged.

Now, a plurality say their finances have only worsened since Trump took office, including 18 percent of the president’s 2024 voters, according to the May survey conducted by Public First.

The findings underscore how Trump has struggled to find a winning midterm message on affordability, even as the economy remains healthy by many indicators. The president’s tendency to go off script, despite his allies’ urging, has further muddied GOP efforts. And the unpopular Iran war has Republicans barrelling toward November with voters’ financial fears remaining a stubborn, lingering political liability.

A majority of Americans say Trump has not done enough to protect them from the economic fallout from the war, which has caused gas, food and flight prices to spike. More than 60 percent — including majorities of both Trump voters and people who backed former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 — say the war has made things more expensive for them overall.

“A major challenge for [Joe] Biden was that, as prices rose and worries about inflation took hold, the response from the Biden administration was that inflation was ‘transitory,’” said Kevin Madden, a longtime GOP communications strategist.

“Trump faces a similar predicament. As prices rise due to tariff and trade policies and global conflict, the response that it's a hoax or not true is just a very discordant message given that so many voters are feeling a budget pinch right now,” he added.

The Iran war is increasingly overshadowing the Trump administration’s domestic economic messaging, as officials often get peppered with questions about oil and gas prices and battleground Republicans grow anxious that the extended conflict could hurt their chances in key Senate and House races this November.

The survey shows that Republicans’ attempts to place the economic blame on Biden aren’t resonating: Just 28 percent of Americans say the former president holds full or most of the responsibility for the current U.S. economy, compared with nearly half who lay much of the blame at Trump’s feet.

"The sooner the war winds down, the better for Trump when it comes to prospects in the midterms because the price of gas is so intricate in the notion of affordability," said one Florida-based Republican strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly.

White House spokesperson Kush Desai said the president "has been clear about short-term disruptions" and is focused on implementing his economic agenda.

"As traffic in the Strait of Hormuz normalizes again, Americans will again see gas prices plummet, real wages grow, inflation cool, and trillions in investments continue pouring in," Desai said in a statement.

Trump voters are far more likely than Harris voters to say that the president has taken sufficient action to curb costs from the Iran conflict, but even his own supporters are split: 43 percent say he has done enough, while 43 percent say he has not.

It's a stark sign that mirrors broader divides within the GOP over the war, as some conservatives, such as media personality Tucker Carlson and former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, have been vocal in their opposition to the conflict.

Still, Trump voters are much more willing than Harris voters — and Americans broadly — to say the U.S. should continue its involvement in Iran even if it increases costs, highlighting the trust they maintain in the president. A 42 percent plurality of Trump voters chose this option, compared with 11 percent of Harris voters and 22 percent of all respondents.

But Thursday brought more disappointing news for the administration: Inflation has climbed to its highest level since Trump returned to office, and the economy grew at a slower pace in the first quarter of the year than previously estimated, the government reported.

Nearly half of Americans still blame inflation for the overall affordability challenges they are facing, the survey finds, even as roughly one-quarter say conflicts overseas are the main reason for their challenges.

Strong majorities of respondents say the prices of everyday items — such as gas, food and medicine — have somewhat or greatly increased in their area since Trump took office, including most of the people who voted for him.

Republican strategists argue that a resolution to the war could improve Americans’ perceptions of the economy, but the longer the conflict drags on, the more difficult it may become for the party to reverse voters’ views. Economic experts have already warned that gas prices will remain elevated for at least several more months as the global economy reels from the conflict.

"If you can get the gas prices back to pre-conflict levels, and the people in those 16 to 18 House districts that are going to decide this race, are feeling good in three or four states, then you're in a much better shape than a lot of people think," the GOP strategist said.

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The MAGA takeover of the Georgia GOP is nearly complete.

The old-guard of the Republican Party in Georgia has fallen after withstanding MAGA’s furor since 2020, replaced by a new breed of candidates — up and down the ballot — closely aligned with President Donald Trump.

On Tuesday, the Trump allies marched on: Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones clinched a spot in the gubernatorial runoff on Tuesday alongside billionaire Rick Jackson, who told supporters he’d govern like the president “with a southern tone.” In the GOP Senate primary, Rep. Mike Collins, a staunch MAGA ally, advanced to a runoff. And House candidates Jim Kingston, Houston Gaines and Clay Fuller won their races by wide margins, boosted by the president’s endorsement.

Meanwhile, longtime Trump antagonists — especially those who denied the 2020 election was “stolen” — lost their primary battles: Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Attorney General Chris Carr and Gabriel Sterling, a former top Raffensperger aide.

The results offered the clearest sign yet that Georgia Republican voters increasingly want their political future tied to Trump-style politics and messaging — a shift in one of the nation’s premier battlegrounds that could shape elections in 2026 and beyond.

“It's key to success in a Republican primary in Georgia today to either have the president's endorsement or be able to make the case to voters that you're certainly a Trump-aligned candidate,” said Georgia Republican Party chair Josh McKoon, a loyal Trump ally.

Candidates like Raffensperger may now be “relics of the past,” said Chip Lake, a longtime Republican strategist who helped Jones’ campaign. “That doesn't mean they're bad human beings, it just means that their style of politics is not consistent today with where the base of the party is.”

But hugging Trump that tightly in the primary has proved lethal for some Republicans in the general election, and Democrats in Georgia hope 2026 will echo the GOP’s 2022 election losses.

The Republican Party in Georgia, like in other states, has been drifting more and more toward a full-throated populist approach during the Trump era. But the old guard led by outgoing Gov. Brian Kemp (R) as well as Raffensperger and Carr managed to hold on through the 2022 midterm primaries against a number of Trump-backed challengers, delaying the hard MAGA takeover that occurred in many other states earlier on. The sharp shift this cycle comes as the GOP pushes for more resources and attention in the key swing state.

Now, some GOP strategists increasingly view aligning with Trump not just as an ideological litmus test, but as a practical necessity — especially as Trump’s political operation sits on  roughly $300 million in campaign funds. 

“It is good for the state of Georgia to choose these MAGA-aligned candidates in that the president has a huge war chest, and that war chest can be utilized for candidates that he likes,” said one Georgia-based Republican strategist granted anonymity to speak candidly about the state’s dynamics.

Across the state’s marquee Senate and governor’s primaries, the winning GOP candidates all embraced Trump’s brand. The expensive and rancorous primary for the governor’s mansion quickly evolved into a contest over who best carried the MAGA mantle — Jones, who has the president’s explicit support, or Jackson, who tried to convince voters that he, too, was closely aligned with Trump.

Trump has stayed out of the Senate primary so far, but the candidates still raced to align with his movement. Collins, a hardline immigration hawk and loyal Trump ally on Capitol Hill who appeared at a rally with Trump earlier this year, said that he is “unapologetically Pro-God, Pro-Trump, Pro-2nd Amendment, Pro-Strong Military” after advancing to the runoff.

Even former football coach Derek Dooley — Kemp’s handpicked candidate who will face off against Collins in the June runoff — leaned into his status as an outsider (à la Trump) and adopted a “Georgia First” pitch.

“We haven't made any attempts to alienate Trump whatsoever. Derek supports the agenda. He's made it clear through the debate and multiple interviews that he supports the president,” said a senior Dooley adviser, who was granted anonymity to speak openly about the race, prior to Election Day.

It’s a notable gamble for a party that was punished during the 2022 midterms for nominating hardline MAGA candidates across the country — including former football star Herschel Walker for Georgia Senate — who later lost in key races. This midterms cycle appears to be trending much harder toward Democrats, given Trump’s low approval ratings, voters’ concerns with the economy and the unpopular war in Iran.

Democrats are more than eager to tie Republicans to the president. Devon Cruz, a spokesperson for the Georgia Democratic Party, said in a statement that the Senate runoff will leave Collins and Dooley “terminally inseparable” from Trump.

Still, Tuesday’s results underscored how Trump’s dominance is increasingly shaping which Republicans can win statewide primaries in key races. And it’s not just in Georgia.

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who has long been a thorn in the president’s side, lost his seat to a Trump-endorsed challenger in a bitter retributive campaign. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy was ousted by the president’s favored candidate. Trump vanquished a majority of the Indiana Republicans who bucked him on redistricting. And he finally backed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton for the Senate race after deeming Sen. John Cornyn to be an insufficient ally.

“The party has completely changed in 50 states,” Lake, the Republican strategist, said. “It looks nothing like it did a decade ago, and it looks absolutely nothing like it did 15 years ago.”

“We're a party that's a lot different, that's got a sharper focus, that's willing to fight more, " he added.

Raffensperger, who had become the biggest icon of standing up to the president, acknowledged to reporters following his loss that conspiracies about the 2020 election – despite no evidence to support any claims of fraud – helped tank his chances with Republican voters.

But he stopped short of blaming Trump’s grip on the party on his failure to advance in the runoff: “I just think terms are up, and so it's a changing of the guard and turning over a new leaf,” he told reporters after his election loss. “We'll have new people with new plans, new hopes, new visions, and we're going to see where it goes.”

© Illustration by Lauren Bulbin/POLITICO (source images via iStock)

Rep. Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley advanced to a runoff in Georgia’s Republican Senate primary, dragging out a bitter contest to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November.

The result plunges Republicans into another monthlong intraparty fight. Meanwhile, Ossoff, who already has a massive name ID and $31 million and counting in his warchest, can continue building and conserving his resources in the marquee race.

It also sets up a proxy battle between President Donald Trump, who holds Collins as a close ally, and Georgia’s GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, who backed Dooley for the nomination. Dooley, who was polling in third place ahead of Election Day, had a late burst of momentum after casting himself as a political outsider and leaning on his ties to Kemp.

The outcome now intensifies pressure on Trump, who didn’t support a candidate in the primary, to intervene. The president’s endorsement in a runoff — where the electorate tends to be highly engaged voters — could prove decisive.

The primary was marked by infighting and state Republicans’ escalating concerns that the national GOP was shifting its attention to other battleground states instead of Georgia.

A runoff looked all but inevitable in the contest’s final weeks with polls showing none of the candidates near the 50 percent support they’d need for an outright win. Dooley and Collins will face off again June 16, though Tuesday’s result suggests the latter holds an advantage.

Early public polling of hypothetical general election match-ups shows Ossoff with a lead over both Republicans.

The general election is expected to be one of the most expensive in the country. The GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund has already pledged an initial $44 million in spending for the fall, while the Democratic-aligned Senate Majority PAC recently committed $20 million.

© Ross D. Franklin/AP; Arvin Temkar/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP

Keisha Lance Bottoms is the Democratic nominee for Georgia governor, as the party seeks to flip the state’s top seat for the first time in nearly three decades.

Bottoms, who defeated a crowded field to win the race outright Tuesday, can pivot to the general election — even as Republicans are headed toward a costly runoff of their own.

Georgia hasn’t elected a Democrat to the governorship since 1998 but has trended hard toward purple-state status in recent years, with Democrats carrying the state in the 2020 presidential election and winning Senate races there that year and in 2022. But the governor’s mansion has remained elusive — and some Democrats have already questioned Bottoms’ ability to win in a general election, noting that her rocky tenure as Atlanta’s mayor from 2018 to 2022 makes her vulnerable to general election attacks.

Bottoms’ outright win lets her get a head start at closing her fundraising gap in the race: Both Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and health care executive Rick Jackson — the two leading candidates on the Republican side — have amassed war chests that exceed hers by millions of dollars, but much of that money has come from personal loans to their campaigns.

With the primary now behind her, she is likely to ramp up efforts to tap national donors and support from Democratic leaders who had largely stayed on the sidelines.

Bottoms, who served as a senior adviser during the Biden administration and earned the former president’s endorsement, boasted higher name recognition than her primary opponents. She easily defeated former state Sen. Jason Esteves, former DeKalb County executive Michael Thurmond and former Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan to clinch the nomination Tuesday.

Public polling before the primary showed Bottoms as the clear front-runner, but the state’s rules — which require candidates to win more than 50 percent of the vote — increased the likelihood of a runoff.

Still, even before the primary concluded, she was already the subject of attack ads from Republicans, including Jackson, foreshadowing the onslaught likely to come.

© Brynn Anderson/AP

A lot of Democrats are willing to sacrifice Black voting power to beat the GOP.

In the two weeks since the Supreme Court significantly narrowed a key provision of the Voting Rights Act, Republicans have kicked off a fresh round of redistricting across the South. Their aim is to dismantle majority-minority districts, which they’ve long argued are unconstitutional, and to try to keep control of the House.

New results from The POLITICO Poll show many Democrats want their party leaders to fight back hard — even if it means breaking up districts designed to protect the power of Black voters and other minority communities.

In theory, Democrats want to keep those districts intact. When given no context on the recent Supreme Court decision, a 54 percent majority of people who voted for former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 say it is more important to protect the voting power of Black voters and other minorities, even if it means Democrats draw fewer seats.

But that number changes significantly when the question is asked in the context of the Supreme Court ruling and Republican gerrymandering — and a 45 percent plurality instead say that Democrats must counter GOP efforts, “even if it means reducing the number of majority-minority districts.”

Taken together, the poll results reveal that Republicans’ aggressive redistricting is testing Democrats' appetite for a maximalist posture in response — and so far, many appear willing to embrace it to win the House. They’re even willing to throw away traditional liberal principles such as boosting the electoral power of voters of color in an effort to fight fire with fire.

“Do I think you should do all of these carve outs? No. But do I think what we've just witnessed should have happened? No. Do I think that the Supreme Court should have come down with Callais? No,” said Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove (D-Calif.). “At some point you do have to stop and say, ‘This is madness, and all this is doing is unraveling democracy.’”

But Democrats’ conversations “probably will have to” involve carving up majority-minority districts, said Kamlager-Dove. “It's existential at this point, and this is a larger battle that we're fighting for.”

It’s a stunning admission from a Black lawmaker who represents a majority-Hispanic Los Angeles district: Defeating Republicans might be more important than protecting districts like hers.

And it’s a real possibility the party would have to deploy the tactic if it hopes to stand a chance against the most aggressive Republican gerrymandering possible. To draw House seats with the best margins for the party — especially in states like Illinois and New York — district lines would likely need to be altered in a way that packs large numbers of Black voters into red-leaning areas in order to make them bluer.

It’s not just a few Democrats switching their minds. Consider the Harris voters who initially say they would protect majority-minority districts: When asked about countering the GOP, they split roughly evenly, with 46 percent saying it’s more important to draw more blue seats and 41 percent saying the majority-minority districts should be kept together.

The survey, conducted by Public First, sheds new light on an emerging front in the gerrymandering war that has spread across the nation. At least nine states will use new maps this fall, with others still weighing last-minute gerrymandering before the midterms. Many more are debating doing so in the lead up to 2028, as mapmaking rapidly becomes a top priority for both parties.

The poll suggests people of color are more willing to accept the trade-off of having fewer majority-minority districts if it means beating Republicans, though margins of error are higher with the smaller sample sizes for this group.

Pluralities of Black (42 percent), Hispanic (45 percent) and Asian American (48 percent) voters who either identified as Democrats or voted for Harris in 2024 — say it is more important to draw more blue seats, even if it means reducing the number of majority-minority districts. White Democrats and Harris voters appeared slightly less likely to support carving up the districts, with 39 percent supporting such a response, 33 percent opposing it and 28 percent unsure.

Some Democratic leaders reject that drawing politically beneficial maps and preserving majority-minority districts are mutually exclusive.

“As the person that draws the maps and stares at the data, I'm telling you that is not a binary choice,” said John Bisognano, the president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee.

“The Democratic Party has always basically been able to win elections, ensure that we are able to be in power in different states because of Black voters,” California Assemblymember Mia Bonta, a Democrat who’s also a Black Latina, said during a news conference. As Democrats push for more aggressive gerrymanders, she said, the party must guarantee “we do not forget and do not disregard the importance of making sure that Black voters are at the center of that.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who is ratcheting up pressure on his colleagues to redraw maps ahead of 2028, told POLITICO that the maps in California and Virginia show a “model for moving forward that won't result in the dilution of Black representation.”

Meanwhile, Republicans are eager to amplify the Democratic divisions over mapmaking, as the party continues to go all-in on drawing favorable House districts in an effort to shore up the party’s razor-thin House majority.

“Those numbers seem to suggest there's not a unified position on the path forward for Democrats on this issue,” said Adam Kincaid, president of the National Republican Redistricting Trust. “I think it shows a split in their coalition, and they're going to need to have everybody on board in order to be successful in repealing or changing these redistricting commissions over the next couple years.”

POLITICO’s Calen Razor and Lindsey Holden contributed to this report.  

© Illustration by Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO (source images via Getty and AP)

President Donald Trump has made the SAVE America Act a central GOP priority ahead of the midterms. Voters still don't know how to feel about it.

New results from The POLITICO Poll show that while many Americans support some core provisions of the SAVE America Act — such as requiring documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote — that support is not overwhelming. And they are far less certain about the sweeping elections bill overall, even as Trump has for months pressured Republican lawmakers to pass it.

Democrats in particular oppose much of the SAVE Act, and many of them are unenthusiastic even about the voter ID provisions that generate the broadest support — a sign that Trump is prioritizing legislation that has little crossover appeal.

A 42 percent plurality of voters who supported former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 back requiring proof of citizenship when registering to vote, including when registering by mail. But that number is dwarfed by the three-quarters of Trump 2024 voters who support such a measure, according to the survey conducted by Public First.

Asked about the bill overall — by name, but without providing information on what’s included — just 37 percent of Americans said they support it, and 21 percent oppose it. A larger share, 42 percent, say they neither support nor oppose the SAVE America Act, or are unsure.

Slightly more Americans say the bill will make elections fairer (38 percent) than those who say it will make elections less fair (32 percent). But 30 percent say they don’t know — another sign that their views on the issue are still forming even as the president wields it as a campaign cudgel.

“We are either going to fix” elections, he wrote on his Truth Social recently, casting it in existential terms, “or we won’t have a Country any longer.”

The findings reveal that though voter ID and proof of citizenship are popular, the SAVE America Act has not broken through in the same way. In addition to requiring proof of citizenship, the bill would also require states to regularly review voter lists and remove non-citizens.

“Voter ID is very popular, but the SAVE Act has been loaded up with other stuff,” said Buzz Brockway, a GOP strategist and former state representative in Georgia. “I think Senate Republicans should strip the bill back to Voter ID only. It still won’t pass because of Democratic opposition, but it would be a more popular bill.”

White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said the SAVE America Act is “commonsense legislation supported by the vast majority of Americans … who want to ensure our elections are secure and that only American citizens vote in American elections.”

The SAVE America Act passed the House in February and has stalled in the Senate amid GOP divisions and staunch Democratic opposition. Four Republican senators — Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine), Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska), Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) and Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) — recently voted against an amendment that would have helped the legislation get across the finish line as part of a broader reconciliation package, raising new questions about its path forward in a narrowly divided Congress.

Critics of the legislation say it would make it much harder for Americans who lack the proper documentation — such as a paper copy of a birth certificate or passport — to vote.

“The SAVE Act will make it exceedingly and unacceptably difficult for hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Americans, to be heard,” Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock said in a brief interview recently. “And so if all the people in the election can't be heard, who are eligible to vote, then that's something other than democracy.”

“I don’t think the American public knows what is in store for them if [the SAVE ACT] passes,” said Hawaii Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono. “Millions of people are going to need to re-register.”

In the absence of movement in Congress, Republicans in some statesare pushing forward with their own efforts to impose proof of citizenship requirements to their voting laws. Several red states, including Arkansas and Kansas, are expected to vote on measures this November that mirror the federal SAVE America Act.

Lawmakers in the battlegrounds of Alaska and Michigan have also garnered the required signatures to put citizenship questions before voters — two states that could test whether Americans’ support for such measures in public opinion polling translates to the ballot box.

© Illustration by Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO (source images via Getty)

Deep-pocketed political groups tied to artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency are rapidly reshaping the midterm money landscape — but many Americans are uneasy with the industries behind the spending.

New results from The POLITICO Poll find broad public skepticism about crypto and AI, creating a possible conflict for candidates benefitting from an influx of contributions from the two industries. These groups are pouring millions of dollars into competitive 2026 races to elevate politicians who they believe will support their agendas in Washington.

Meanwhile, Americans have been slow to embrace either technology.

A 45 percent plurality of Americans say investing in cryptocurrency is not worth the risk, even if it can yield high returns, and a 44 percent plurality say AI is developing too quickly, according to the April survey conducted by independent firm Public First.

Nearly half of Americans say they trust a traditional bank with their money more than a cryptocurrency platform, while just 17 percent say the opposite. And two-thirds support lawmakers either imposing strict regulations or setting broad principles for the AI industry.

The results raise an emerging challenge for the industries as their aligned super PACs seek to translate financial might into political influence. Several of these groups are already becoming the most dominant players on the political battlefield, spending heavily for candidates on both sides of the aisle and in some cases rivaling the fundraising of long-established party groups.

It’s too early to say how candidates associated with these groups will fare in November — and the two industries could draw different reactions from voters. Still, in hypothetical head-to-head matchups, poll respondents were much less likely to choose candidates backed by a campaign group seeking looser regulations on artificial intelligence than candidates backed by a group advocating for more stringent rules on AI and tech companies. Those polled were also more likely to support a group advocating for policies to protect the environment and prevent climate change.

Skepticism of the industries, those results suggest, could turn into voter backlash if Americans grow fed up with the heavy spending.

“Democrats’ best approach is to make their spending an issue,” said Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who has been outspoken about the need for AI regulation. “People do not want AI companies to run them over culturally and economically. They don’t trust crypto.”

Some of the resistance to the AI and crypto groups may reflect broader American dissatisfaction with special interest groups’ spending. A 41 percent plurality say special interest groups have too much influence over politics in the U.S., while 23 percent say they have the right amount. Just 12 percent say they have too little influence.

But the AI and crypto super PACs are on a new level, and the rise of these groups is creating shockwaves throughout politics. These groups could easily become the biggest spender in any House or Senate race that they choose — or several.

Leading the Future, a pro-AI super PAC founded in August, has already raised more than $75 million since its launch, according to recent filings with the Federal Election Commission. Through a network of PACs, it has deployed money on primaries in North Carolina, Texas, Illinois and New York for Democratic and Republican candidates. Fairshake, a pro-crypto group primarily funded by Coinbase, Andreessen Horowitz and Ripple Labs, is expected to back candidates in both parties and has already spent $28 million across several competitive primaries through its network of PACs.

Both industries are also spending big on Washington lobbyists to ensure their influence continues past Election Day. The AI lobby in particular has ballooned in recent years; OpenAI and Anthropic spent record amounts of money on lobbyists in the first quarter of 2026. The crypto industry has also poured millions into lobbying efforts in recent years to push Congress to enact a sweeping overhaul of how digital assets are regulated.

“The universal thread, from their perspective, is, I think an attempt to maintain a degree of bipartisanship and identify people whom they think will be champions on these issues,” said Jason Thielman, former executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, of the crypto-aligned groups.

For the crypto industry, the super PAC spending is aimed at pushing through a market structure bill called the CLARITY Act that is pending in the Senate. Industry executives and lobbyists hope the proposed law would give the industry a stamp of legitimacy from Washington and deliver long-term certainty about how digital tokens will be overseen by market regulators.

The super PAC money acts as both carrot and stick: It could benefit lawmakers facing competitive reelection campaigns in 2026 who back the industry’s goals — and threaten those who stand in the way.

In 2024, a Fairshake-affiliated super PAC spent more than $40 million to help defeat then-incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Brown, a longtime crypto critic, is running again and could again be a major target for the crypto PAC network.

“Crypto groups are absolutely becoming a disruptive force in political spending, including in Ohio,” said former Ohio Republican Rep. Jim Renacci, who unsuccessfully challenged Brown in 2018. “But let’s face it, they’re not unique. It’s just the latest version of outside money.”

Fairshake declined to comment.

The AI groups spending big in elections want to ensure their nascent industry is regulated by one set of federal rules, not a state-by-state patchwork, as state legislators rapidly pass new laws regulating the technology. The White House and congressional Republicans have generally supported that goal, but have so far floated light-touch regulations that most Democrats believe don’t go far enough. While the tech sector leans toward the GOP’s deregulatory approach, some lobbyists are open to strong federal rules on AI in exchange for a ban on state laws.

“A national framework will prevent a patchwork of conflicting state laws from harming our ability to win the global AI race against China,” Leading the Future spokesperson Jesse Hunt said in a statement.

But the polling suggests these industries’ efforts may run into broader public skepticism.

More than half of Americans say they have never and would not consider buying or trading cryptocurrency. On artificial intelligence, nearly half of respondents say it is likely to eliminate more jobs than it creates, and a 43 percent plurality say the risks of the technology outweigh the benefits.

"There is a lot of work that needs to be done to help the voting public fully appreciate the national security threat that we face if we are not first in [the AI] race,” Thielman said of AI-affiliated groups. “It’s essential that [the] industry continue to invest very aggressively here, both to increasingly educate the public, educate policy makers because the issue is somewhat mixed from a public opinion perspective.”

The skepticism cuts across partisan lines, with pluralities of voters for both Trump and former Vice President Kamala Harris in 2024 saying that investing in crypto is not a risk worth taking, even if it gives high returns. A near majority of both groups — 49 percent of Harris voters and 46 percent of Trump voters — say AI is developing too quickly.

For now, many of the super PACs tied to the AI and crypto industries remain relatively unknown to many voters, allowing them to fly under the radar.

Americans associate political spending with more established industries, with a 29 percent plurality incorrectly identifying groups representing the oil and natural gas industry as the highest spenders in the midterms — ahead of AI and tech groups or crypto-backed organizations.

Just nine percent of Americans say they have heard of Leading the Future, the pro-AI super PAC, and only three percent have heard of Fairshake, the pro-crypto PAC. Meanwhile, 48 percent of Americans say they have heard of the National Rifle Association and 36 percent say they’ve heard of Planned Parenthood Action Fund.

“Until people realize where the money's coming in from, a lot of people don't judge it,” Renacci said. “But I do think if they see somebody is backed by crypto, that’s always going to be a problem, because, let's face it, the people that I talk to in Ohio, they don't understand crypto, and most say they're not comfortable with [it].”

© Illustration by Anna Wiederkehr/POLITICO (source images via Getty and AP)

After a narrow loss in Virginia, Republicans are pointing fingers as President Donald Trump's national gerrymandering fight slips into a stalemate.

Multiple Republicans say the party should've spent much more, much earlier to have a better shot at blocking Democrats’ Virginia map, which could give the party as many as four more House seats. And pressure is now growing on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to make up for Democrats’ gains with a GOP-led redistricting effort in his state, as soon as next week.

“You’d be hard pressed to find a single Republican tonight who doesn’t think the GOP should’ve done more in Virginia. It actually hurts more that it was so close,” said a GOP operative, granted anonymity to speak candidly, like others in this article.

There are mounting signs that Trump and the GOP have used valuable time and political capital on an arduous tit-for-tat that is so far looking like it will be close to a draw. Even if Republicans squeeze out gains in a new Florida map, their total gains are likely to be modest at best.

“I just don't think that Republicans looked at the map and said, ‘Okay, what's the worst case scenario, what could happen if all the Democrat-controlled legislators rebel against this?’” said one Virginia Republican. “We're seeing a thing that felt really good at the moment erase gains that we fought for elsewhere.”

Tuesday’s results in Virginia, combined with gains in California and a new court-drawn seat in Utah, have effectively erased the advantage Republicans built off new maps in Texas, North Carolina, Ohio and Missouri. It’s a stark reversal nearly nine months after Trump first urged Republicans in the Lone Star State to redraw maps, upending the midterm battlefield.

“Just so you get the truth and not the partisan spin here, Republicans came up with the idea of the mid-decade redistricting fight and started in Texas,” Erick Erickson, a conservative radio host and an influential voice with evangelical voters central to the MAGA base, wrote on X after the amendment passed in Virginia.

“Now, as drawn, the Democrats have an advantage from the redistricting fight,” he said.

The RNC and the White House did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

National Republican Congressional Committee chair Rep. Richard Hudson is holding out hope that the state’s Supreme Court, which reserved the right to weigh in on the new map after the election, voids Democrats’ effort.

“This close margin reinforces that Virginia is a purple state that shouldn’t be represented by a severe partisan gerrymander,” Hudson said in a statement. “That’s exactly why the courts, who have already ruled twice to block this egregious power grab, should uphold Virginia law.”

Still, several Virginia Republicans said their party could have done more to prevent Democrats from edging out a victory Tuesday. Democrats outspent Republicans by a roughly three-to-one margin, putting Republicans at a disadvantage on the airwaves until the late stages of the race. Virginians for Fair Elections — which led the “yes” effort — raised $64 million, according to Virginia Department of Elections data, boosted by nearly $38 million in support from House Majority Forward, a political nonprofit aligned with House Democratic leadership.

Even though Republicans have far more money stacked up in outside groups — including $297 million brought in by the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. since the start of last year alone — they ultimately never matched Democrats’ investment.

"If they had spent some money, they could have won tonight and someone's got to own that and explain why that decision was made,” said a second Virginia-based GOP strategist.

Some Republicans turned their ire to the Indiana Legislature, where GOP lawmakers rejected the White House’s push to draw a new map that would give them two additional red-leaning seats. Chris LaCivita, Trump’s former campaign co-manager and a longtime Virginia-based GOP strategist, shared a social media post on Tuesday calling out Republicans in Indiana for not being more aggressive.

It’s now too late for the state to redraw its lines, and Trump allies have spent time and millions of dollars to defeat the GOP legislators who opposed the effort.

With most states off the table, Republicans are now looking to DeSantis as one of their last and best chances to win back the upper hand ahead of November. The Florida governor delayed a special session to take up redistricting in the state until after Virginia’s election, and he has yet to release a new map proposal.

Former Trump White House spokesperson Harrison Fields urged Republicans in Florida to respond to the Virginia outcome with an aggressive gerrymander.

“To my friends in Tallahassee: in a state that is ruby red, it’s time to respond to what we saw tonight in Virginia with a redistricting plan that reflects Florida’s true partisan lean — and adds 3–4 GOP seats to our supermajority,” Fields said in a social media post. “Virginia is a purple state being drawn as deep blue. Florida should draw a map that’s even redder — and get it passed ASAP.”

Not everyone is on board with escalating the redistricting arms race. Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican-turned-independent who was targeted by California Democrats’ gerrymander, said the result was further proof that the redistricting war never should have been started.

“It's very unfortunate that it's happened in Texas. I think it's very unfortunate that it happened in California and Virginia and everywhere else where it's happened,” Kiley told POLITICO after the Virginia race was called Tuesday evening. “Now that this whole thing has just gotten completely out of hand, there have been no winners, and it's created such instability, maybe this is the time that we can come together and say, ‘Alright, enough is enough.’”

Yet for all the recriminations over Republicans losing ground in the president’s redistricting campaign, one person escaped largely unscathed: Trump himself.

The president mostly stayed on the sidelines until he hosted a tele-rally alongside Speaker Mike Johnson to urge people to vote “no” in the race’s final hours.

Some Republicans in the state were glad he stayed away, given his flagging national standing, particularly in a light blue state. Thirty-three percent of adults approve of Trump’s job performance, according to an AP-NORC poll released Tuesday.

“If I was the Democrats, I'd want Trump on the stump every day,” Virginia-based Republican strategist Brian Kirwin said.

Blake Jones contributed to this report. 

© AP

Virginia voters on Tuesday approved Democrats’ effort to gerrymander the state, giving the party an edge in its bid to reclaim the House in November.

The new map would give Democrats the chance to flip four seats currently held by Republicans. Its adoption could put Democrats slightly ahead in the national mid-decade gerrymandering wars — a result few thought possible when President Donald Trump picked the fight by pushing Texas Republicans to redraw their map last summer.

The result is a major win for Democrats’ hopes of retaking Congress, and showed their ability to mobilize voters distrustful of partisan redistricting and push back against Trump in the Democratic-leaning state. It’s also a victory for Virginia Gov. Abigail Spanberger in her first national test as governor, after she faced pressure to take a more active role in the campaign’s final stretch.

Virginia’s contest saw an explosion of outside spending and the involvement of national heavyweights like former President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, as both sides raced to convince people to vote during an off-cycle April election. Even Trump, who largely stayed on the sidelines of the battle, joined an eleventh-hour tele-rally on Monday to urge voters to reject the redistricting ballot measure.

“This is really a country election. The whole country is watching,” the president said.

Democrats entered the final stretch of voting cautiously optimistic despite tight polling numbers, buoyed by their five-seat gain in California last November and an unexpected new seat in Utah drawn by the courts. Those seats, and the new Virginia map, effectively wipes out the gains Republicans made in Texas, Ohio, North Carolina and Missouri.

Still, one major threat still looms over Virginia’s map: The state’s Supreme Court could nullify the redistricting effort, a move that would effectively void the election results.

And this cycle’s gerrymandering fight isn’t over yet. Florida GOP lawmakers could act as soon as next week to unveil a new map that could offset Democrats’ new advantage.

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© Win McNamee/Getty Images

Democrats hope gerrymandering Virginia will give them the edge they need to win back the House. But Tuesday’s special election is proving more competitive than they’d like.

Tight polling and concerns over voter turnout in an atypical April election have many Democratic party strategists and officials preparing for a close finish.

“I always thought this campaign would be close [and] 24 hours out, I believe that to be the case,” Democratic strategist Jared Leopold said on Monday, before the final day of voting.

“Anytime you're on the ‘yes’ side of a referendum, you've got the burden of proof,” he added. “It doesn't matter what the referendum is, but anytime you're arguing for ‘yes,’ the other side is going to be arguing for the status quo.”

The party anticipated its campaign to redraw the state’s congressional maps would be boosted by its massive war chest and a favorable political environment that helped elect Gov. Abigail Spanberger last November. If approved, the aggressive partisan gerrymander could deliver Democrats a 10-to-1 seat advantage in Virginia, which amounts to a net pickup of as many as four House seats.

“I think it was always going to be close,” said another Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “One side is giving [President Donald Trump] power and the other side is doing a reform that a lot of them don't really want to do. That's your choice.”

The election will serve as a test of whether voters in the light blue state will set aside long-standing distaste for partisan gerrymandering to counter a redistricting fight set in motion by Trump last year. With primary elections already underway, this is one of Democrats’ last shots at offsetting or even overcoming the gains Republicans made in Texas and elsewhere before November.

If the ballot referendum fails, it would be an early embarrassment for Spanberger as governor and a high-profile loss for a Democratic Party that has cast Trump’s efforts in existential terms as “election rigging” that undermines American democracy.

The campaigns have drawn heavyweight national involvement from former President Barack Obama and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, among others, who have campaigned on behalf of Virginians for Fair Elections, which is leading the “yes” effort. On the Republican side, former Gov. Glenn Youngkin has been a vocal critic of the measure. And, after largely staying on the sidelines, Trump made a late push Monday night for the “no” campaign, joining Speaker Mike Johnson for a tele-rally where he sought to remind voters of the stakes.

“Tomorrow, your commonwealth has an incredible, and really, an important election in every sense of the word that will have major consequences for our entire country this November,” Trump said. “This is really a country election. The whole country is watching.”

Public polling suggests the race will hinge as much on persuading voters about the need for new maps as on mobilizing them to the polls for an out-of-cycle election.

A Washington Post-Schar School poll conducted last month shows the “yes” campaign leading by roughly five percentage points among likely voters. That same poll found Republicans are slightly more likely than Democrats to say they planned to vote in the special election or already had — 85 percent to 79 percent.

Many Democrats say they remain cautiously optimistic. There has been an uptick of early voting in recent days, particularly in counties in Northern Virginia, which tend to be blue-leaning. Overall, more than 1.3 million people cast early ballots, according to the Virginia Public Access Project, not much lower than the roughly 1.48 million who cast early ballots in 2025, when Spanberger was running.

“I don’t think there’s been an alteration to whether or not people like gerrymandering,” said John Bisognano, president of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. “What I do think is, if this is the only way that we can keep the U.S. House of Representatives as a representative body for this nation, people are willing to do it.”

Virginia Democrats have also recently put pressure on the governor to more aggressively campaign on behalf of the “yes” effort and be more outspoken about the stakes of the special election. She was on the campaign trail over the weekend urging voters to back the measure.

“Ultimately, I do think this is more of a persuasion election than a turnout election, and so it’s a test to see if [the] ‘no’ campaign has done an effective job reaching voters,” said Noah Jennings, a Virginia-based Republican strategist unaffiliated with the “no” campaign.

Complicating Democrats’ pitch are two factors: The Virginia Supreme Court could still nullify the redistricting effort after the April election. And, in 2020, voters approved a constitutional amendment that established a bipartisan redistricting commission seeking to limit the partisan redrawing of maps.

That history has given the “no” campaign a potent line of attack.

Conservatives have painted Spanberger as a flip-flopper on redistricting and slammed her for caving to pressure from national Democrats. GOP-aligned groups have also sent out misleading mailers or run ads using past comments opposing gerrymandering to suggest that both she and Obama are “no” votes on the ballot measure.

“The Democrats have deployed over $60 million to rig Virginia’s congressional maps and yet the referendum is extremely close — as all sides acknowledge,” said Mike Young, of Virginians for Fair Maps, the group encouraging voters to vote against redistricting. “That didn’t happen by accident or dumb luck.”

Jennings said if the “no” effort wins on Tuesday, “that's a very clear showing that there's a line that you cannot cross.”

“Virginia does have that larger middle that does move independently, and I think those people don’t like the gamesmanship, and they don’t like it from either side,” he said.

The “yes” campaign says it’s unfazed.

“While Republicans have spent nearly $34 million flooding this race with MAGA misinformation, the YES Campaign has been doing the work — knocking over 600,000 doors, communicating directly with Virginians, organizing in every corner of the state, and driving historic early vote turnout,” said Dan Gottlieb, a spokesperson for Virginians for Fair Elections.

The outcome of Tuesday’s election could reverberate well past Virginia. After Trump pushed to redraw congressional boundaries in Texas last year, the fight escalated into a tit-for-tat battle, with each party trying to lock in an advantage ahead of November.

In California last year, voters overwhelmingly approved new congressional districts, offsetting GOP gains out of Texas. Florida could redraw its own maps as soon as next week, which could counter any Democratic gains in Virginia — should the ballot measure pass.

CLARIFICATION: The headline of this article has been updated to more accurately reflect the stakes of the Virginia special election for Democrats.

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© Alex Wong/Getty Images

Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff holds a massive fundraising advantage over the Republicans hoping to unseat him in November, giving him a head start as the GOP field remains fractured.

Ossoff, considered one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents of the cycle, raised $14 million during the first quarter of the year and ended with more than $31 million cash on hand — a significant war chest that dwarfs the combined totals of his Republican challengers, according to filings from the Federal Elections Commission.

On the GOP side, Rep. Mike Collins led in first-quarter fundraising, raising just over $1 million and entering the second quarter with $2.1 million in cash on hand. Collins has been a front-runner in public polling of the race, but with a large share of voters still undecided ahead of the May primary, the contest appears increasingly likely to head to a June runoff.

Rep. Buddy Carter raised $469,795, but he ended the quarter with more in the bank than his primary opponents — $3.7 million — thanks in part due to a $3 million he loaned his campaign last year. Former football coach Derek Dooley raised $663,502 and has $2.2 million in the bank.

National Republicans are likely to funnel more money into the contest once a nominee emerges, with the GOP-aligned Senate Leadership Fund already planning a $44 million investment in Georgia. But in the meantime, Ossoff has been able to build a financial lead in what’s expected to be one of the most expensive Senate races of 2026.

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© Jemal Countess/Getty Images

NEW YORK — A fear of losing again is already shaping how Democrats think about 2028.

Chants of “run again!” reverberated through the packed room as Kamala Harris spoke Friday at the National Action Network convention, a gathering of Black voters, lawmakers and power brokers that saw drop-ins from a steady stream of potential presidential candidates. But several Black attendees openly questioned whether anyone other than a straight, white man can win the White House.

“The Democratic Party, they're going to have to consider … who can win? Who can win, Black, white, who can win?” the Rev. Kim Williams, 63, a New Yorker and registered independent said in an interview.

“I don't think [the country is] ready for another different type of person,” said Annette Wilcox, a 69-year old New Yorker.

It’s an open question the party is grappling with in the wake of Harris’ decisive 2024 loss to President Donald Trump. Conversations with a dozen people on the sidelines of the Rev. Al Sharpton’s gathering found some lingering concerns that America remains too bigoted — and that as a result, the desire to diversify the highest reaches of government is in tension with the desire to win.

In interviews, several of the prospective 2028 Democrats themselves argued that anyone can win. They poured into the midtown Manhattan ballroom over the week to build their relationships with Black voters for what became a barely-hidden shadow primary.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, a first-term Democrat who won statewide in Arizona despite Harris losing the state, told POLITICO on the sidelines of the convention that the party shouldn’t let fear narrow who ultimately runs.

“If you got stuck into this idea of what an ideal character is … you could potentially miss some really great talent,” said Gallego, who leaned intohis identity as a Latino veteran in his 2024 campaign.

Maryland Gov. Wes Moore, another possible 2028 candidate, said that he doesn’t “know many people back in 2022 who thought that an African American who had never held political office in his life was gonna be the next governor of Maryland.”

“People want to know, does your message meet a moment,” he added.

On stage with Sharpton on Friday, Harris seemed to agree. She made her most explicit overture at running again for the presidency, telling the audience she was “thinking about it” — to loud cheers and applause. Her appearance at the convention energized an otherwise largely staid event.

But even Harris, the first Black and South Asian woman to become vice president, has tacitly acknowledged the limitations of the country.

In her latest book, she divulged that former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg — another 2028 contender who also made a pit-stop at NAN — was her top vice presidential pick in 2024. But she didn’t select him because she didn’t believe the country was ready for both a woman of color and a gay man in the White House.

A spokesperson for Harris declined to comment.

Some women, from former first lady Michelle Obama to various convention attendees disappointed by Harris’ 2024 loss, have said the U.S. isn’t ready for a female president.

“I believe the current climate of this country is not ready for a Black woman as president,” Aaliyah Payton, 30, a middle school teacher in the Bronx, said while waiting to see Harris speak on the third day of the convention in a line that spanned far outside the convention room.

“If Kamala Harris is running as a Democrat, and there is another white man also running as a Democrat, she would have a tough time winning,” said 60-year-old Donna Carr, who lives in New Jersey. “It’s a man’s world.”

“I’m not going to lie, it may be too soon,” said 27-year-old New Yorker Justina Peña when asked if Harris should run again.

The same handwringing roiled the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, and voters ultimately selected Joe Biden — a more moderate straight white man — to block Trump from winning a second consecutive term.

The debate within the Democratic Party over what kind of candidate is electable played out again most recently in Texas, where the Democratic Senate primary was defined by tensions over race and concerns over which candidate could unify enough Democrats, independents and disillusioned Republicans to flip the red state. Voters chose seminarian James Talarico, a white man, over political firebrand Jasmine Crockett, a Black woman, in the end.

“We saw it with the race with Crockett, and I saw a woman say she wanted to vote for Crockett, but she knew she could not win against [a] white male Republican,” said Williams, the 63-year-old reverend.

Now, those conversations are already emerging for 2028 before a single Democrat has officially announced a bid for the White House. The question over 2028 ambitions hovered over Moore, Gallego, Harris, Buttigieg, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and California Rep. Ro Khanna this week — and while nobody said they officially are, nobody ruled it out. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear and Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly are slated to speak on Saturday.

Buttigieg has dismissed concerns over his viability, including in a direct response to Harris’ revelation of why she didn’t choose him as a running mate in 2024.

“My experience in politics has been that the way that you earn trust with voters is based mostly on what they think you’re going to do for their lives, not on categories,” Buttigieg told POLITICO in a September interview.“Politics is about the results we can get for people and not about these other things.”

Some of the Black voters at the conference similarly expressed frustration with the idea that candidates’ identities should be a consideration in the looming 2028 primary.

“My concern — biggest concern — is when we get into a crisis like this in this country, people want to go to the ‘center,’ which usually is right of center in my view. A lot of people get kind of left out,” said Wilcox, the 69-year-old New York voter.

“In my experience, or history I've had with the Democratic Party, I feel like when that happens, Black people get tossed to the side.”

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© Getty Images

President Donald Trump is bringing back 2020. Many Republicans wish he wouldn't.

Conversations with nearly a dozen GOP state and county chairs and strategists reveal a party largely eager to move on from relitigating Trump’s election grievances, which they’re worried may detract from an economic message that actually motivates voters. But the president won’t let it go, subpoenaing 2020 election records and putting pressure on lawmakers to pass legislation to overhaul voter registration laws.

As Republicans stare down a treacherous midterm landscape, there's a growing view inside the party that focusing on “stolen election” claims and voter fraud will kneecap them in the general election: That messaging might play well with the MAGA base in the primary, but it could alienate moderates tired of rehashing an election from nearly six years ago.

“I’m always one to believe you should look forward, not backward,” said Charlie Gerow, a Pennsylvania-based GOP strategist and Trump convention delegate who hosted a meeting of fake electors in 2020 at his Harrisburg-based public affairs firm. “It would be better if the midterms focused on the recovery of the economy and all the good things the Republican administration and Congress are doing to move the economy forward.”

In recent weeks, Trump has turned his sights on Maricopa County — Arizona's largest county — subpoenaing records just weeks after the FBI raided an elections office outside Atlanta. He has revisited grievances that the 2020 election was “rigged,” suggested Republicans should nationalize elections and is demanding that lawmakers make passing the SAVE America Act, which would put in place stricter voting requirements, their “No. 1 priority.”

“Part of me understands it, and part of me just wants to move forward,” said Todd Gillman, chair of the Monroe County Republican Party in Michigan.

“Focus on the things that matter to everybody throughout the whole country,” he said, “or we’re going to have a problem in a few months.”

Trump does have backing from a number of Republicans, including some battleground-state GOP chairs who are not only embracing the president’s election probe, but openly encouraging his administration to audit their states’ records as they continue to push allegations of fraud from 2020.

Bruce Parks, the chair of the Washoe County, Nevada, GOP, said he would “absolutely” welcome a probe into his county and Clark County, the two largest in the state. And Jim Runestad, the chair of the Michigan Republican Party, suggested a review of records in Detroit, long a focal point of Trump’s 2020 election conspiracies.

“There’s no problem at taking a look at this and making sure everybody’s comfortable,” Runestad said.

Still, others say the risk is that voters simply don’t care — or have moved on. Republicans, including Trump’s own advisers, increasingly want him to focus on the economy ahead of the midterms.

That comes as polling repeatedly shows that economic issues — not election issues — top voters’ list of concerns. In a February POLITICO Poll, more than half of all Americans — 52 percent — said the cost of living was a top issue facing the U.S. By comparison, less than a quarter — 23 percent — said a top issue was the U.S.’ democracy being under threat, a view held predominately by Democrats.

Those cost of living worries are now being exacerbated by Trump’s war in Iran, which is driving up gas prices and wreaking global economic havoc as it enters its third week.

The White House said Trump’s efforts are aimed at restoring confidence in elections and reiterated the importance of passing the SAVE Act.

“[Trump] is committed to ensuring that Americans have full confidence in the administration of elections, and that includes totally accurate and up-to-date voter rolls free of errors and unlawfully registered non-citizen voters,” spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement.

Buzz Brockway, a GOP strategist and former state representative in Georgia, called election issues a “huge distraction,” adding: “Nobody outside of a small dedicated group are talking about this, they're talking about the economy, they're talking about, now, the price of oil.”

In Georgia, long an epicenter of Trump’s repeated efforts to litigate the 2020 election, some Republicans say voters are now largely “immune” to the issue that’s been rehashed endlessly for the past five years.

Some state-level GOP officials are hoping Congress passes the SAVE Act — despite the reluctance of many Republican lawmakers — so it will give them enough cover with MAGA voters but allow them to avoid talking about election issues themselves.

While Trump’s “stolen election” claims may still be a driving force for some primary voters, the general electorate is focused elsewhere. And if Republicans make those grievances central to their midterm message, they risk falling into a similar trap Democrats confronted during the 2024 presidential election — when former Vice President Kamala Harris’ warnings about democracy won over already loyal Democrats but failed to sway enough of the swing voters she needed to clinch the presidency.

“You’ve got to at least touch that base,” said one Georgia-based GOP strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly. But “once you’ve got the nomination, then I think it really collapses down into economic issues.”

That dynamic can create a political conundrum for Republican candidates.

“A savvy Democrat will put a candidate on the spot and say, ‘You agree with [Trump], don't you?’ and make a mess,” Brockway said. Republicans have “got to figure out a way to deflect that question somehow, in a plausible way that doesn't alienate this loud minority.”

© Julia Demaree Nikhinson/AP Photo