'Whistling by the graveyard': Republican strategist warns GOP face huge midterms challenge

The GOP could face a difficult midterm period, according to a Republican strategist who says some will be "whistling by the graveyard".

Victory is not guaranteed for the Republican candidates in next year's voting, an anonymous strategist claimed, suggesting that Donald Trump would be crucial to the GOP's campaign efforts. Speaking to Politico, the unnamed analyst said there will be trouble for some GOP members in inspiring voters to turn up in the 2026 elections, even if their support for Trump is unwavering.

They said, "Any Republican not preparing for a turnout challenge in 2026 is whistling by the graveyard. If Trump is on the ballot, Republican turnout is strong. And if he’s not, it craters. It collapses. There’s an entire group of people who are Trump voters, but Trump alone. There seems to be no way to get them to the ballot."

It is believed the president will be more involved in the midterms than first expected. Trump's top political director, James Blair, confirmed the president would have a hands-on approach to next year's voting. Blair also backed the GOP to perform fairly well, so long as it can fix an "overcomeable problem".

He said, "With a lot of campaigning next year, with a lot of resources in the right districts for the right candidates. The president will campaign a lot to get people out." Blair added that "candidates still have to connect with these voters, too," and cannot just ride on the president's name alone.

Some believe the president's influence is still strong in those deciding votes. Tom Eddy, the Republican chair in Erie County, Pennsylvania, is the "ace in the hole". Headway in the midterms was attempted earlier this week by the GOP, but Judge Jeffrey V. Brown of the District Court for the Southern District of Texas prevented Republican-drawn maps for the midterms.

Judge Brown ruled that the Republican maps drawn by the Texas state legislature were illegal and prohibited them from being used in the next election. The ruling prevents Republicans from eliminating five Democratic-held seats. Mark Joseph Stern, senior writer for Slate, described Brown's 160-page decision as an "extraordinary rebuke" in a new analysis of the case.

"Remarkably, Brown found that it was Trump’s own Department of Justice that had injected race into the plot as part of its 'hamfisted' effort to cook up a pretext for new maps," Stern wrote. "And he laid out a gobsmacking amount of smoking-gun evidence that all points in the direction of unlawful racism."