GOP faces reality check as they try to hold onto House majority

Republicans are heading into the final stretch of the midterm race recognizing a blunt message: Voters are frustrated, and acknowledging those frustrations might be key to keeping them in the GOP column.

Republicans have been increasingly framing the election as a choice between “common sense” versus “communist crazy” — arguing that democratic socialist and progressive candidates would make life worse for the American people.

At the same time, the party is confronting the limits of running on its record in Washington at a moment when gas prices, grocery costs, a chaotic immigration crackdown and the war with Iran have given voters fresh reasons to question the direction of the country and put Republicans on the defensive.

Vice President Vance underscored that reality during a closed-door House Republican meeting Tuesday, urging lawmakers to level with voters rather than paper over their frustrations — and place the fault squarely on Democrats.

“Right now we have a country where people are frustrated. You got to level with them,” Vance said, according to audio obtained by The Hill. “You got to be honest about those frustrations, and you got to be honest about the ways in which the Democrats caused the problems that you guys have been very diligently fixing over the past 18 months.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) sent lawmakers home early on Wednesday, canceling votes on Thursday and scrapping the last two weeks of the September session. He argued that much of the legislative agenda has been stalled in the Senate and that lawmakers could spend the extra time on the campaign trail.

Still, the stakes are particularly high for Republicans in the lower chamber, who are defending a razor-thin majority heading into an election cycle where the president’s party historically faces defeat.

“This midterm is going to be a f—ing bloodbath,” Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), who is exiting Congress after losing the South Carolina GOP gubernatorial primary, told reporters Wednesday. “There’s a lot at stake. The Senate is at stake. The House is at stake. The future of our country is at stake. I would tell you that the midterms of 2026 are a precursor to 2028.”

Asked whether she thinks Republicans will win the midterms, Mace said, “No, I don’t.”

“I’m concerned about it. When the economy is the way that it is, when rates are up, when the price, the affordability, and the cost of living is up where it is traditionally, the majority goes the other direction in a midterm election,” Mace said.

An Economist/YouGov poll of 1,536 adults conducted between Aug. 21-24 found that only 28 percent of Americans were satisfied with the economy while 64 percent were dissatisfied. The poll showed that Democrats have a 7-point lead over Republicans on the question of which party does a better job on economic issues.

It also found that 39 percent of Americans said Democrats are stronger on the economy while 32 percent said Republicans are better at handling the issue.

And a recent New York Times/Siena poll conducted between Sept. 8-13 among 1,503 likely voters found that 50 percent trust Democrats to do a better job handling foreign wars, while 43 percent of voters trust Republicans more.

The war with Iran has spiked gas prices — a very visible and deeply felt economic marker. The national average for regular unleaded gas jumped from $4.31 to $4.43 in the span of four days this week, according to AAA . A year ago, the average was $3.20.

Meanwhile, the national average for diesel jumped 42 cents over the last week.

The concerns over the Iran issue were on full display this week, after seven Republicans joined Democrats in voting for a war powers resolution that would limit President Trump’s military actions in the country, an increase from the four who previously supported similar resolutions.

Republican Reps. Zach Nunn (Iowa) and Mariannette Miller-Meeks (Iowa) — two of the new “yes” votes — are competing in seats rated toss-ups by the nonpartisan election handicapper Cook Political Report.

“I said it in March: the mission had to stay focused and limited, because Americans do not want another forever war. I will not vote to keep our soldiers in an open-ended war, with Iowans paying too much at the pump,” Miller-Meeks wrote on social media after the vote.

“The Iranian regime and its nuclear ambitions have been defanged. The President needs to present a plan to Congress and the American people for how this ends so we can focus on bringing our soldiers home and lowering prices,” she added.

Nunn echoed similar sentiments, arguing in a statement that Iowa “has already paid a devastating price, including two service members killed by an Iranian drone in Kuwait.”

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who earlier this week introduced articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, predicted Wednesday that a lot of GOP incumbents will lose their race over the conflict.

“You know, maybe it’s not a thing that moves 20 percent of people, but it could move 5 or 10 percent and even if it’s not the war that they dislike so much, it’s the consequences of war, which is the price of diesel and gasoline, and so it’s a big issue. I mean, this was Donald Trump’s election to lose, and he’s doing everything he can to lose it,” Massie, who lost his GOP primary to a Trump-backed opponent in May, told reporters.

Some incumbents running in tight districts have tried to distance themselves from Trump and his policies, as they attempt to appeal to a broad electorate.

Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar (R-Fla.), for instance, accused Trump of going “too far” with some of his immigration enforcement efforts in a campaign advertisement released Thursday. Salazar’s district has one of the highest foreign-born populations of any House district.

“The same Hispanics who helped you get to the White House in 2024 feel betrayed today,” Salazar, whose seat is rated as likely Republican by Cook Political Report, said in the ad. “You can be for immigration what Lincoln was for slavery and Reagan was for communism.”

Republicans are pointing to their legislative accomplishments, including the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, as evidence they are addressing many of the issues that Americans are impacted by most at home.

And they are asking voters to give them two more years to continue fixing what they accuse Democrats of breaking.

“Rome was not built in a day, and so I always find that actually leveling with the American people is very powerful. Saying we know that there’s a lot of work left to do,” Vance told Republicans this week. “We know that we got to keep on at it.”

“But the problem is the Democrats are not. They are the arsonists. They are the people who started the fire. So, when you’re trying to fix these problems, do you give Republicans another two years to continue to work and fix the problems we’ve been fixing, or we hand power back over to the very people who caused the problem to begin with. That message to me has done a lot more, and I’ve seen it in the polling than just going out there and pretending that everything is perfect,” the vice president continued.

Johnson echoed that message in a press conference Tuesday.

“Just less than two years ago, we had a country on the brink of ruin. We had criminals, and cartels had free reign over the border. You all remember that Americans of all ages were dying from fentanyl overdoses. Great scourge upon the country. Inflation soared over 9 percent under [former President] Joe Biden, a 40-year high … In 2024 the people said that’s enough. They wanted a change, so they elected and returned Donald J. Trump back to the White House, and they gave our party, the Republicans, control the House and Senate. In just 19 short months since that happened, we have turned the ship of state around,” he said.

“We have changed the course of the country. We put ourselves on that new path, and it is well underway,” the Speaker added.