Trump's Republican Party insists there's no affordability crisis and
dismisses election losses
[November 17, 2025]
By STEVE PEOPLES
NEW YORK (AP) — Almost two weeks after Republicans lost badly in
elections in Georgia, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, many GOP
leaders insist there is no problem with the party's policies, its
message or President Donald Trump's leadership.
Trump says Democrats and the media are misleading voters who are
concerned about high costs and the economy. Republican officials aiming
to avoid another defeat in next fall's midterms are encouraging
candidates to embrace the president fully and talk more about his
accomplishments.
Those are the major takeaways from a series of private conversations,
briefings and official talking points involving major Republican
decision-makers across Washington, including inside the White House,
after their party's losses Nov. 4. Their assessment highlights the
extent to which the fate of the Republican Party is tied to Trump, a
term-limited president who insists the economy under his watch has never
been stronger.
That's even as an increasing number of voters report a different reality
in their lives.
But with few exceptions, the Trump lieutenants who lead the GOP’s
political strategy have no desire to challenge his wishes or beliefs.
“Republicans are entering next year more unified behind President Trump
than ever before,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Kiersten
Pels said. “The party is fully aligned behind his America First agenda
and the results he’s delivering for the American people. President
Trump’s policies are popular, he drives turnout, and standing with him
is the strongest path to victory.”
Trump's approval is similar to former Presidents Barack Obama, a
Democrat, and George W. Bush, a Republican, at the same point in their
terms, however. Their parties had major losses in midterm elections.
Trump insists there is no affordability problem
Since the election, the White House has quietly decided to shift its
message to focus more on affordability.
Much of the first year of Trump’s second term has been dominated by his
trade wars, his crackdown on illegal immigration, his decision to send
National Guard troops into American cities and the longest government
shutdown in U.S. history.
Trump has talked more about affordability in the days since Election
Day. On Friday, he slashed tariffs on beef and other commodities that
consumers say cost too much. But Trump's primary message is that the
economy is better and consumer prices lower than as reported by the
media. It’s much the same message that Democratic President Joe Biden
and his allies spent years pushing, with little success.
“We have a great economy and the prices are coming down,” Trump told
reporters Sunday night before boarding Air Force One on his way back to
the White House from his Florida resort.
He blamed Democrats for an economy he described as having “the highest
inflation in the history of our country. I have it down now to a normal
level and it’s going down further.”
In a social media post Friday, Trump said of the GOP: “We are the Party
of Affordability!”
He also has claimed the cost of a Thanksgiving dinner this year will be
down 25%, but that number is off. Grocery prices are 2.7% higher than
they were in 2024.
Economic worries were the dominant concern for voters in this month's
elections, according to the AP Voter Poll.
Republican strategist Doug Heye said Trump’s approach is not necessarily
helpful for the Republican Party or its candidates, who already face a
difficult political environment in 2026 when voters will decide the
balance of power in Congress. Historically, the party occupying the
White House has significant losses in nonpresidential elections.
“Republicans need to relay to voters that they understand what they’re
going through and that they’re trying to fix it,” Heye said. “That can
be hard to do when the president takes a nonmetaphorical wrecking ball
to portions of the White House, which distract so much of Washington and
the media.”
“Candidates cannot afford to be distracted,” Heye added. “As we saw in
the recent elections, especially in Virginia, if you’re not talking
about what voters are talking about, they will tune you out.”
[to top of second column]
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Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-NY., speaks at the Conservative Political
Action Conference, CPAC, at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention
Center, Feb. 22, 2025, in Oxon Hill, Md. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana,
File)
A view from a key governor's race
The reality outside Washington suggests that not every Republican
candidate shares Trump's outlook.
New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a House Republican leader who began a
campaign for governor last week, said there is no question about the
top issue for her constituents: affordability. She also played down
her party's focus on conservative cultural priorities, including
transgender athletes, which was a top Republican focus in the recent
Virginia governor’s race.
“Certainly I support women and girls sports and protecting them, but
as you see in all of our messaging, we’re focused on the top issues,
which every conversation with voters is about the high taxes and
spending, the unaffordability,” Stefanik told The Associated Press.
Stefanik offered a nuanced perspective on Trump’s leadership.
She was unwilling to criticize any of the president’s major policies
or governing decisions. But Stefanik, who has fought for Trump's
agenda as a GOP leader in Congress, shifted the focus to New York's
Democratic governor when asked about the strength of the Republican
Party's support for the president.
“My sense is our party is fully united behind firing Kathy Hochul,”
Stefanik said before highlighting Trump's support from New York
voters in recent elections.
While Stefanik said it is important for the governor to have “an
effective working relationship” with Trump, she declined to say
whether she would support a hypothetical Trump move to send the
National Guard to New York City, as he has threatened. “It wouldn’t
need to happen if there was a Republican governor," she said.
Last year, Stefanik called for the National Guard to help control
pro-Palestinian protests on Columbia University.
Defiant talking points
The Republican National Committee, which serves as the political arm
of Trump's White House, issued a series of talking points that shrug
off the recent election losses as a byproduct of Democratic voter
advantage in the states where the top races played out.
The talking points, obtained by The Associated Press, ignore
Republican losses in Georgia and Pennsylvania. They also overstate
Trump's political strength, claiming that he is more popular than
Obama and Bush were at the same time in their tenures.
The claim has been echoed across conservative media in recent days.
An AP polling analysis finds that Trump’s approval is not higher
than Obama’s or of Bush at a similar point in their second terms.
Trump's approval, at 36% in a November poll by The Associated Press-NORC
Center for Public Affairs Research is slightly higher than it was at
this point in his first term. But both Obama and Bush has approval
ratings were in the low 40s at this point in their second terms,
according to Gallup polling, which is similar to where Trump landed
in Gallup’s latest approval poll in October.
For Obama and Bush, their parties had big losses in the midterm
elections that followed.
The Republican messaging crafted by Trump's team, however, doubles
down on supporting the president and his policies.
The recent elections “were not a referendum on President Trump,
Republicans in Congress, or the MAGA Agenda,” the RNC talking points
state. To win in 2026, “Make America Great Again” voters "will need
to show up at the ballot box; President Trump and Republicans are
going to make that happen.”
___
Associated Press writers Chris Megerian in West Palm Beach, Florida,
and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux and Will Weissert in Washington
contributed to this report.
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