GOP Candidates Scrub Trump Ties From Campaign Websites Over Fears of Mighty Midterms Losses

With six weeks until the midterm elections, a growing number of Republican candidates are quietly distancing themselves from President Trump, removing his name and image from campaign materials as his approval ratings sag and Democrats open up a wide polling lead.In worse news, conservative podcasters appear to be losing interest in the president. A new analysis of 70,000 hours of podcasts found mentions of Mr. Trump’s name have fallen nearly 70 percent from their 2024 election-run-up peak, even as left-leaning podcasts have held steady — or increased — their focus on him as Democrats push to make the midterms a referendum on the president.Florida gubernatorial candidate Byron Donalds on Monday removed at least eight main-page references to Mr. Trump, including a campaign banner and photo, according to a CBS12 report. His campaign cited a shift in policy focus amid a tight race against David Jolly, though the endorsement remains available under a separate tab on his site.In Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District, Ralph Alvarado changed his campaign slogan from “America First Fighter” to “Independent Leadership” in August. Democrats seized on the change as evidence of a scrub, NBC reported. Mr. Alvarado dismissed the criticism as “a phony story” while maintaining he still supports the president.Florida House nominee Mike Beltran removed language describing how he “stood with President Trump every step of the way” after winning his primary, according to the New Republic. And in Texas’s 35th District, Carlos De La Cruz swapped the label “Trump Conservative” for “Proven Conservative,” a change flagged in a DCCC tracking overview of similar phrase edits across GOP campaigns nationwide.Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal analyzed nearly 70,000 hours of podcasts and found that Mr. Trump’s name is fading away. Using an in-house AI tool designed to track social media trends ahead of November’s midterms, researchers also pulled more than 10 million TikTok and Instagram posts, then cross-referenced them with broadcast news and the Journal’s own reporting to map which political topics are gaining traction in the mainstream.What conservative hosts are discussing instead: rising gas prices, a slumping economy, and the Iran war, which advisers say is sapping supporter enthusiasm. Monthly Trump mentions have dropped 30 percent since the war in Iran began in late February, and some hosts — including Tucker Carlson — have broken publicly with the administration.A White House spokesman told the paper that left-leaning podcasters are targeting Mr. Trump “to distract from Democrats’ record.”The broad retreat comes as new polling shows Democrats with a commanding advantage. A Marquette University Law School survey conducted earlier this month found Democrats leading Republicans 54 percent to 41 percent among likely voters, up from a 51-45 edge in July. The poll surveyed 1,023 adults with a margin of error of +/-3.3 percentage points.Other polls point the same direction. RealClearPolling‘s generic congressional ballot average has Democrats ahead nationally, 50.2 percent to 41.6 percent, and RealClearPolitics projects Democrats picking up five Senate seats, enough for a 52-48 majority. Betting markets echo the trend — Polymarket gives Democrats a 59 percent chance of sweeping both chambers, while Kalshi puts the odds at 54 percent.But it’s not all bad news for Republicans. An NBC News poll found that the GOP is viewed positively by 36 percent of voters, while 49 percent view the party negatively. The Democratic Party, meanwhile, is in a deep hole: Just 29 percent of voters surveyed view the party positively, with exactly half of voters viewing it negatively. Cost of living remains voters’ dominant concern. The Marquette poll found 37 percent named inflation and the cost of living as the country’s top issue, well ahead of the economy broadly (16 percent), the Iran war (10 percent), Medicare and Social Security (9 percent), and health care (7 percent).Mr. Trump has proposed sending $5,000 “dividend” checks to Americans if Republicans hold Congress, but the idea has drawn skepticism even from his own party. “You give a dividend if you have money in profit. There is no profit. There’s a $2 trillion loss occurring each year. I don’t know how you give money that you don’t have,” Senator Rand Paul told reporters last week. Despite Mr. Trump’s push for candidates to run as if he were on the ballot himself, many in competitive races are charting their own course — a sign the party is increasingly running from its leader rather than with him as November approaches.Meanwhile, Eric Deters, who organized the Patriot’s Day Freedom Fest, calling it the “best MAGA event,” announced Monday that the Kentucky function would no longer happen due to low ticket sales. Among the speakers and celebrities who had been scheduled to appear at the Saturday event were Kid Rock, Duane “Dog the Bounty Hunter” Chapman, and Fox News personality Joe Concha.“When I put together Patriot State Freedom Fest, I put it together with the game plan and the idea that I could pay for it with the VIP sales of $1,000 from these hundred people that I interact with on a regular basis that have money,” Mr. Deters said, according to one report.“It’s Monday morning. I got my guy who’s setting up the ticket sales,” he said. “I said, ‘How many have bought a ticket?’ And he said, ‘You can’t make this up.’ Are you ready for the drumroll? “Only six people had bought a VIP ticket.”

GOP Candidates Scrub Trump Ties From Campaign Websites Over Fears of Mighty Midterms Losses

GOP Candidates Scrub Trump Ties From Campaign Websites Over Fears of Mighty Midterms Losses

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