Inside the White House, there are two main takeaways from last night’s miserable performance for the Republican Party.
The first one – that fielding quality candidates matters – is the one GOP officials are eagerly messaging.
But the second, perhaps more existential issue, is that President Donald Trump isn’t focused enough on the issues that matter most to the voters the party needs.
“People don’t think he’s lived up to his promises,” said one White House ally, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to discuss internal thinking. “You won on lowering costs, putting more money back into people’s pockets. And people don’t feel that right now.”
The person noted parallels with former President Joe Biden, who he said insisted that America was on the upswing while people were struggling to make ends meet. “This is the problem Biden had,” the person said.
The concern over Trump’s focus elsewhere – on the wars he’s solved, the clean street of D.C., the tariff case at the Supreme Court – comes as Americans grapple with a host of pocketbook issues, including the rising costs of goods, inadequate food assistance benefits – and the looming expiration of health care subsidies, which Democrats have pushed to the forefront during the government shutdown.
“The President hasn’t talked about the cost of living in months,” said a person close to the White House. “People are still hurting financially and they want to know the White House is paying attention and trying to fix the problem as quickly as possible.”
Republicans were also quick to note that Virginia and New Jersey are blue states where the party was always going to have a tough time competing. But Republican gubernatorial candidates in New Jersey and Virginia did not focus enough on cost-of-living issues – to their detriment, according to James Blair, the political director for Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign and the RNC.
Blair, who now serves as the White House deputy chief of staff, said he expects Trump to home in on pocketbook issues ahead of the midterms.
“You’ll see the president talk a lot about cost of living as we turn … into the new year,” Blair said in an exclusive interview forThe Conversation that airs in full Friday.. “The president is very keyed into what’s going on, and he recognizes, like anybody, that it takes time to do an economic turnaround, but all the fundamentals are there, and I think we’ll see him be very, very focused on prices and cost of life.”
Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon agreed, saying he expects Trump to not only start talking more about “affordability, but job creation, making sure that the Big Beautiful Bill is fully implemented, making sure that all these investments that have been talked about actually get made.”
“It’s now time to double and triple down on President Trump’s agenda. If you execute the agenda, we’re going to be in good shape. He’s got a populist agenda. He’s got a nationalist agenda. You’ve just got to get on with it,” Bannon said in a separate sitdown with POLITICO.
Vice President JD Vance also appeared to pick up on this thread in a post on X Wednesday morning, saying Republicans “need to focus on the home front.”
“The president has done a lot that has already paid off in lower interest rates and lower inflation, but we inherited a disaster from Joe Biden and Rome wasn’t built in a day,” Vance said. We’re going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that’s the metric by which we’ll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond.”
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The criticism that Trump’s focus has strayed from the issues that matter most is not merely Monday-morning quarterbacking after a tough election night.
Some in the Republican party, including Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), have warned for months that the White House was straying too far from the economic populism that helped MAGA sweep to victory in 2024.
“Too much focus on foreign policy while people are hurting at home delivered exactly the results you’d expect,” said a person close to the White House.
Still, it’s a markedly different message from the one Trump proffered Wednesday morning.
“TRUMP WASN’T ON THE BALLOT, AND SHUTDOWN, WERE THE TWO REASONS THAT REPUBLICANS LOST ELECTIONS TONIGHT,” Trump posted Tuesday night.
Several other Republicans noted that the quality of the candidate is the real problem.
“A Bad candidate and Bad campaign have consequences – the Virginia Governors race is example number 1,” wrote Trump’s elections guru Chris LaCivita on X.
A Republican operative noted that the magnitude of Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears’ loss is a blow to Gov. Glenn Youngkin’s national ambitions.
“Glenn Youngkin’s handpicked candidate for governor failed horribly,” said the operative. “And took out years of Republican gains in the Commonwealth. Thus – his national aspirations ended where Winsome Sears did.”
Despite the recriminations, Blair said GOP obituaries are premature. Better candidates and a more focused message can surmount the obstacles that the party faced in 2025, even with all the headwinds facing the president’s party.
“I think that with a lot of campaigning next year, with a lot of resources in the right districts for the right candidates, that is an overcomeable problem,” Blair said.
Megan Messerly contributed to this report.
