GOP candidates who run on President Donald Trump‘s successful policies will win their 2026 midterm elections, said Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters in an exclusive interview with The Daily Signal.
“The president’s policies are the key to victory in the midterms,” he said. “If we follow what the president has done, we win. If you communicate the fact that he’s done all these great things, then I think will be successful.”
“We could ride the president’s back to victory in the midterms,” he added.
Republicans should focus on the policies Trump has already passed and is championing, like affordability, safety in the streets, closing the borders, cracking down on drug cartels, and securing investments in America, Gruters said.
“There’s pain still from the Biden era right now, but everything that the president is doing, he’s saving the country, and it will be a generational change what he’s already done, but yes, that doesn’t happen overnight,” Gruters said.
Americans already bought into this messaging when Trump won the popular vote, according to the chairman.
“The president won the popular vote, and he won it with his policies of moving America forward and rebuilding it, in coming out on behalf of the average person out there,” he said. “We still have the winning message. The president is implementing that message that he campaigned upon and and the winning message will continue to be the messaging that the president’s continues to put out on a daily basis.”
While messaging is important, candidate quality is “everything,” Gruters said.
“That’s why the president has been very focused on making sure we have the right candidates in the right races,” he said. “He’s getting involved. He’s choosing the right ones that will go to bat and will do the right thing for the country.”
Gruters said Republicans saw in the Nov. 4 off-year elections in states like Virginia, New Jersey, and New York City that “when you have good candidates, they’re going to stick up to the right messaging and messaging that works,” which is “messaging that people are have already bought into.”
Republican candidates lost the key races in those states, with Democrat Abigail Spanberger winning the Virginia gubernatorial race, Democrat Mikie Sherill taking the governor’s mansion in New Jersey, and socialist Zohran Mamdani becoming the next mayor of New York City.
The biggest challenge Republicans face is getting Trump-only voters to come to the polls when he isn’t on the ballot, Gruters said.
The RNC will tell those voters that if Republicans lose their majority in Congress after midterms, “basically the president will be shut out.”
“A vote for these down-ballot candidates is the same thing as a vote for the president, and that’s the message as a party that we have to deliver,” Gruters said. “I think that people understand the realities of what’s happening just based on what the shutdown did. So I think that will be a winner for us with helping us motivate our base moving forward.”
The GOP is “working with the White House every day” to communicate that message, Gruters said.
“We’re going to make sure that we communicate the message that if we lose the midterms, the presidency is basically over, and there’s nothing better to demonstrate that than the recent shutdowns and what the Democrats are willing to do in order to try to prevent the president from having any ability to move the country forward.”
“They know that the president’s policies work,” he said. “They know that the president’s policies are a winning message, and we will be able to communicate that to the voters who have come out for the president three times, and we expect them to come out again to make sure that he can serve out his presidency for the last two years.”
