Trump’s Grip on GOP Slips as Midterm Election Anxiety Sets In

(Bloomberg) -- As Donald Trump took an aggressive stance on the global stage at the United Nations on Tuesday, several Senate Republicans were breaking from the president back in Washington.

The GOP backlash, which has been simmering below the surface throughout Trump's second term as lawmakers privately grumbled he hasn't focused enough on affordability issues, burst into public view as a rapid succession of Republicans challenged Trump on everything from the Iran war to the president's "lavish" summit this week with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

Republicans have long been loathe to openly criticize the president, who has wielded an uncommonly strong hold over his party and retains long memories about who has crossed him. Back in May, eight Indiana state lawmakers who defied Trump on a redistricting plan faced their primary voters, and only two won. The president that month similarly ended Texas Senator John Cornyn's political career by backing Ken Paxton's primary challenge instead.

So confident is the president of his singular electoral magnetism that his rallying cry at campaign events from Texas to North Carolina has been to call on his supporters to vote as if he's on the ballot in November.

Yet those same Republican lawmakers who held tight with Trump through the primaries are now facing a general election environment and a very different electorate. They now have to contend not just with GOP voters, but Democrats who've always opposed the president, as well as disaffected independents who've drifted from Trump over economic concerns.

Retail gasoline prices are up. So is diesel. The cost of financing government debt has risen since the Iran war began, driving up the cost of mortgages, credit cards and consumer debt. And a confident White House that has unapologetically pursued all of its priorities at once, from tariffs to getting Trump's name on the Kennedy Center, is increasingly seen as unfocused on the costs Americans pay to go about their daily lives.

Trump's reservoir of support began to crack last week, when Florida Republican Maria Elvira Salazar cut a video telling Trump that his immigration crackdowns have gone "too far," as she battles to retain her House seat in a Miami-area district heavily impacted by the administration's deportation policies.