Inside the Trump strategy to turn things around for Republicans in the midterms

The midterms mood among Donald Trump’s inner circle has soured as GOP candidates openly break with the president and his approval ratings hit an all-time low, prompting a largely unspoken but age-old question: How does an unpopular president best help his party keep control of Congress? Trump advisers have privately acknowledged that there’s little expectation he can win over large numbers of independents and swing voters, which was part of his path to victory in critical states in 2024. And while they’re more concerned about losing control of the House, Republicans’ previous confidence that they can hold onto the Senate is dwindling by the day. “It’s obviously going to be f***ing rough,” one Trump adviser told CNN, adding that they believe the best-case scenario is achieving what Democrats did in 2022, when under former President Joe Biden they narrowly lost control of the House but kept the Senate.