Trump fights on home turf as Democratic midterm hopes rise

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Republicans are defending territory they never expected to be at risk four weeks before Election Day, as President Donald Trump implores voters not to desert his party with the promise of more cash giveaways.

A top White House adviser, meanwhile, argued Sunday on CNN that “partisan pollsters” are wrong that voters are hurting financially — a message that suggests a disconnect between the country and a president who boasts of an economic “golden age.”

And polling released over the weekend pointed to growing peril for the GOP, with Democrats leading or in tight races in states Trump won easily two years ago, amid signs that Latino voters , who helped power him back to the White House, are drifting away.

The Iran war remains an anvil for Republicans heading into the final stretch of the midterms, with few signs that high gasoline and diesel prices will return to cheaper levels soon — at least in time for voters to feel the difference by November 2.

Still, polls four weeks away do not forecast directly how the election will turn out, and there is palpable nervousness among Democrats with painful memories of their past defeats by a president who is now throwing everything at the final weeks.

The intensifying political combat underscores the critical stakes of the election, as Democrats aim for House and Senate majorities they’d likely use to probe deep into Trump’s White House and his family’s finances during the final years of his term.

Democrats need only a few pickups to win back control of the House, where they currently have 214 seats, compared with 219 Republicans (including one independent who caucuses with the majority). They need a net gain of four seats to win the Senate in a duel that carries the tantalizing possibility of a Supreme Court nominating fight after conservative Justice Samuel Alito told CBS News that he now considers retirement every term.

Trump, seeking to defy approval ratings in the 30s, campaigned in deep-red Alabama on Friday; on Saturday he spoke at a rally in Ohio, which he won by 11 points in 2024 but where a critical Senate race this year is too close to call. His travel schedule is another sign his party is on the defensive a month out.

He pleaded with Republican voters in the Deep South to “pretend I’m on the ballot” and waxed about the unprecedented “golden age” he says he’s conjured. In an apparent attempt to sweeten his message, the White House announced a $90 payment to around 20 million seniors who are on Medicare Part B. Last month, Trump promised every American adult $5,000 if Republicans win the midterms. In Ohio on Saturday night, the president crudely promised his voters victory against the Democrats, if only they’d turn out in huge numbers to vote. “We’re going to win big, and we’re going to shove it up their ass,” he said.

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The White House is pushing back hard on a narrative of economic pain.

“Ahead of an election cycle, the fact that there’s possibly partisan pollsters telling us that the people are really, really depressed, it’s a classic Democrat move,” Kevin Hassett, director of the National Economic Council, told CNN’s Jake Tapper on “State of the Union” Sunday. Hassett blamed high prices for groceries and food on former President Joe Biden and argued that fresh government data Friday showing only 29,000 jobs were created in September was an outlier.

Democrats claim that such characterizations reflect denial in the White House. “People can’t afford their lives,” Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly said on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” dismissing Trump’s promised payouts as “trying to buy votes.”

GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana warned that the biggest election issue was the cost of living. “We have to tell the American people the truth,” Kennedy said. He added on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that “we (keep) telling them not to believe their own lying checkbooks.”

“The American people, both sides, feel anger,” Kennedy said. “If they don’t feel anger, they feel deep melancholy.”

Multiple polls back up Kennedy’s assertions on the economy. In the latest, for CBS News this weekend, 70% of voters said Trump’s policies were pushing prices up. And 56% said Trump’s policies were responsible for today’s economy, while only 20% blamed Biden. In an AP/NORC poll last week, 69% of adults said that Trump’s handling of the cost of living had been worse than expected.

Democrats have offered scant details about what they’d do to cut the cost of living. But in a midterm election that is shaping up as a referendum on an unpopular president, that may not matter.

Trump has complained that “nobody’s selling” the fact that “there’s no economy like this economy.” But he’s hardly sticking to one single message himself. He appeared to share Republican Arkansas Sen. Tom Cotton’s cell phone number on social media Saturday amid a dispute over daylight saving time; on Sunday, he lashed out at Fox News for not sufficiently covering his Ohio rally and filled Truth Social with photos of himself with Chinese leader Xi Jinping and AI illustrations staking claims to Greenland.

Nathan Howard/Reuters

A Senate map once thought to favor Republicans now looks challenging for the party that currently holds both the House and the Senate as part of a monopoly on Washington power. On Friday, a top GOP super PAC paused spending on a Republican-held seat in North Carolina, where Michael Whatley trails in the polls.

Fresh New York Times/Siena polls published Saturday showed Democrats leading in the races for Republican-held Senate seats in Alaska and Texas. The surveys also found no clear leader in races in Ohio, Kansas and Iowa — results that will also cheer Democrats because the seats are currently held by Republicans and Trump romped to victory in each state in 2024. Trump’s approval rating on the economy languishes at or below 40% in each of the states. And roughly half of voters surveyed want a candidate who will provide a check on Trump.

Other tight races are raging in Michigan, where progressive Democrat Abdul El-Sayed is trying to keep retiring Sen. Gary Peters’ seat for Democrats; and in Maine, where Democrats finally hope to pick off longtime GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

In another danger sign for the GOP, a new NBC/Telemundo poll released Sunday found Latino voters saying by a 24-point margin that they’d prefer to see the Democrats win Congress. Just 27% of Latino voters approve of Trump’s job performance overall, with 20% approving of his handling of the cost of living.

In 2024, Trump forged historic breakthroughs in virtually every segment of the Latino community, leading to hopes among some GOP strategists of a permanent realignment. But there’s been a backlash to the White House’s intensive deportation campaign. In knife-edge states including Texas, where Democratic Senate nominee James Talarico is conjuring hopes of a first statewide victory for his party in more than 30 years, Latino defections could prove hugely significant.

Voter sentiment can change in the final weeks before an election, and Trump insists pollsters always underplay MAGA support. It would not be a surprise if key races tighten, especially if the base rallies for the president one last time.

Trump beseeched Americans during his rally in Alabama to recognize he’d made “unbelievable progress” and promised “new levels of greatness.”

But the evidence of nationwide angst over the cost of living is compelling. And since Trump promised to fix the issue in 2024, the election may come down to this simple question: Do voters believe his invocations of a “golden age”?

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距离大选日还有四周，共和党人却在捍卫他们从未预料到会面临风险的阵地，而唐纳德·特朗普总统则恳求选民不要抛弃他的政党，并承诺提供更多现金补贴。

与此同时，一位白宫高级顾问周日在 CNN 上辩称，“党派民调专家”认为选民在经济上遭受损失的说法是错误的——这一信息表明，国家与一位吹嘘经济“黄金时代”的总统之间存在脱节。

周末公布的民调显示，共和党的处境日益危险，在特朗普两年前轻松获胜的几个州，民主党人领先或选情胶着，同时有迹象表明，帮助他重返白宫的拉丁裔选民正在逐渐疏远共和党。

伊朗战争仍然是共和党在中期选举最后阶段面临的一大难题，而且几乎没有迹象表明高昂的汽油和柴油价格会很快回落到较低的水平——至少在11月2日之前，选民们无法感受到价格的变化。

不过，距离大选还有四周的民意调查并不能直接预测选举结果，而且民主党人明显感到紧张，他们对过去败给这位总统的痛苦记忆犹新，而这位总统现在正全力以赴地投入到最后几周的竞选中。

日益激烈的政治斗争凸显了此次选举的关键性，因为民主党人的目标是赢得众议院和参议院的多数席位，他们很可能会利用这些席位在特朗普任期的最后几年深入调查白宫及其家族的财务状况。

民主党只需再赢得几个席位即可重夺众议院的控制权，他们目前在众议院拥有214个席位，而共和党则拥有219个席位（包括一名与多数派结盟的独立人士）。民主党还需要净增四个席位才能赢得参议院的控制权。这场参议院之争还可能演变成一场最高法院大法官提名之争，因为保守派大法官塞缪尔·阿利托告诉哥伦比亚广播公司新闻网，他现在每届任期都会考虑退休。

特朗普的支持率已跌至30%左右，但他仍试图扭转颓势。周五，他前往共和党传统票仓阿拉巴马州进行竞选活动；周六，他又在俄亥俄州举行集会。2024年，他曾以11个百分点的优势赢得俄亥俄州，但今年该州一场关键的参议院选举结果仍难分伯仲。他的行程安排也表明，距离大选仅剩一个月，共和党已处于守势。

他恳求美国南部各州的共和党选民“假装我的名字在选票上”，并大谈他所创造的史无前例的“黄金时代”。为了进一步拉拢选民，白宫宣布向约2000万参加联邦医疗保险B部分的年长者发放90美元的补贴。上个月，特朗普承诺，如果共和党赢得中期选举，将向每位美国成年人发放5000美元。周六晚在俄亥俄州，这位总统粗暴地向他的选民承诺，只要他们踊跃投票，就能战胜民主党。“我们将大获全胜，让他们颜面扫地，”他说。

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白宫强烈反驳有关经济困境的说法。

“在选举周期开始前，一些可能带有党派倾向的民调机构告诉我们民众情绪非常低落，这是典型的民主党伎俩，”国家经济委员会主任凯文·哈塞特周日在CNN的“国情咨文”节目中告诉主持人杰克·塔珀。哈塞特将食品杂货价格高企归咎于前总统乔·拜登，并认为周五公布的最新政府数据显示9月份仅新增​​2.9万个就业岗位是一个异常值。

民主党人声称，这种说法反映了白宫的否认态度。亚利桑那州参议员马克·凯利在哥伦比亚广播公司（CBS）的“面对国家”（Face the Nation）节目中表示：“人们连自己的生活都负担不起”，并驳斥特朗普承诺的赔偿金是“试图收买选票”。

路易斯安那州共和党参议员约翰·肯尼迪警告说，最大的选举议题是生活成本。“我们必须告诉美国人民真相，”肯尼迪说。他在NBC的“会见媒体”节目中补充道，“我们（一直在）告诉他们不要相信自己那份会说谎的支票簿。”

肯尼迪说：“美国人民，无论南北双方，都感到愤怒。如果他们不感到愤怒，就会感到深深的忧郁。”

多项民调都支持肯尼迪关于经济的说法。最新一项民调显示，本周末哥伦比亚广播公司新闻频道（CBS News）的民调显示，70%的选民认为特朗普的政策推高了物价。56%的受访者认为特朗普的政策是造成当前经济困境的原因，而只有20%的人将责任归咎于拜登。美联社/NORC公共事务研究中心上周的民调显示，69%的成年人认为特朗普对生活成本的处理比预期更糟糕。

民主党人几乎没有透露任何降低生活成本的具体措施。但在这次中期选举中，这场选举正逐渐演变成对一位不受欢迎的总统的一次全民公投，因此这些细节可能无关紧要。

特朗普抱怨说“没人宣传”这样一个事实：“没有哪个经济体能与之媲美”。但他自己却也并未坚持单一的立场。周六，在与共和党阿肯色州参议员汤姆·科顿就夏令时问题发生争执之际，他似乎在社交媒体上分享了科顿的手机号码；周日，他抨击福克斯新闻没有充分报道他在俄亥俄州的集会，并在Truth Social平台上发布了大量他与中国领导人习近平的合影以及人工智能绘制的、声称对格陵兰岛拥有主权的插图。

内森·霍华德/路透社

此前人们普遍认为共和党在参议院的选情更为有利，但如今看来，这个目前垄断华盛顿权力、同时掌控众议院和参议院的政党将面临严峻挑战。周五，一个共和党超级政治行动委员会暂停了在北卡罗来纳州一个共和党把持席位上的竞选支出，该席位的民调显示，迈克尔·沃特利的支持率落后于共和党候选人。

周六公布的《纽约时报》/锡耶纳学院最新民调显示，民主党在阿拉斯加州和德克萨斯州共和党把持的参议院席位竞选中领先。民调还显示，俄亥俄州、堪萨斯州和爱荷华州的竞选也未出现明显的领先者——这一结果同样令民主党人振奋，因为这些席位目前由共和党人把持，而特朗普在2024年大选中在这三个州都轻松获胜。特朗普在这三个州的经济支持率都徘徊在40%或以下。此外，约有一半的受访选民希望候选人能够制衡特朗普。

其他竞争激烈的选战也在密歇根州上演，进步派民主党人阿卜杜勒·埃尔-赛义德正努力为民主党保住即将退休的参议员加里·彼得斯的席位；在缅因州，民主党人终于希望拿下长期担任共和党参议员的苏珊·柯林斯。

对共和党而言，又一个危险信号摆在眼前：周日公布的NBC/Telemundo最新民调显示，拉丁裔选民以24个百分点的优势表示，他们更希望民主党赢得国会。仅有27%的拉丁裔选民认可特朗普的整体执政表现，而只有20%的人认可他对生活成本问题的应对。

2024年，特朗普几乎在拉丁裔社区的各个群体中都取得了历史性的突破，这让一些共和党策略师寄希望于拉丁裔选民的永久性重组。但白宫大力开展的驱逐移民运动引发了强烈反弹。在包括德克萨斯州在内的几个选情胶着的州，民主党参议员候选人詹姆斯·塔拉里科（James Talarico）正力图为民主党赢得30多年来的首个全州胜利，拉丁裔选民的倒戈可能产生极其重大的影响。

选民情绪在选举前的最后几周可能会发生变化，而特朗普坚称民调机构总是低估“让美国再次伟大”（MAGA）运动的支持率。如果关键选区的选情胶着，尤其是在总统的基本盘最后一次团结起来支持他的情况下，这并不令人意外。

特朗普在阿拉巴马州的集会上恳求美国民众承认他取得了“难以置信的进步”，并承诺将取得“新的伟大成就”。

但全国范围内民众对生活成本的焦虑情绪是显而易见的。由于特朗普承诺在2024年解决这个问题，此次选举可能最终取决于一个简单的问题：选民是否相信他所说的“黄金时代”？