Republicans grappling with Tuesday’s Democratic romp are warning the White House that no matter how many foreign policy goals the president achieves, voters will care about the economy more.
Trump traveled to 13 countries in his first eight months, and claims to have ended eight wars. World leaders come to the White House for Oval Office sit-downs almost every week; negotiations over tariffs are permanently front and center.
Many of Trump’s biggest second-term victories, like brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, came on the world stage. Trump didn’t even let a crippling government shutdown curtail his recent Asia trip, as Obama did in 2013.
Now Republicans see Tuesday’s ballot-box repudiation of the GOP as a reminder that voters respond primarily to the cost of living. And Trump allies want the administration to shift its emphasis from the international to the domestic, reminding voters of the tax cuts they passed.
“Maybe one of the only real lessons of the election is a reminder that it always turns out to be economic issues, kitchen-table issues,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “I’m glad the president’s had some very good success internationally, but that’s not what motivates voters. I think he does [understand that]. I know his team does.”
Despite Democrats’ double-digit margins of victory in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, Republicans and White House officials say they were unsurprised. They’ve already acknowledged Republicans put forward weak candidates, and Democrats successfully focused on the No. 1 issue facing voters: affordability.
James Blair, one of Trump’s senior advisers, told Politico that focus is why democratic socialist (and now mayor-elect of New York City) Zohran Mamdani did so well in his race — and added that Trump will be “very, very focused on prices and cost of living” going forward.
“What President Trump has accomplished overseas with trade deals and with peace talks is a significant historical achievement,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo. “But I do think that the focus on domestic policy priorities should be very top of mind.”
For the White House, it’s a delicate balancing act. One person close to the White House argued that Trump had to get most of his foreign policy goals done first this year, insisting that the administration would come full-circle and return to domestic politics.
“Knowing that everything after the off-year election is going to be the economy, they ran for the finish line on international stuff,” this person said. “The shift to domestic economic issues, domestic politics, has always been in the works.”
White House spokesman Kush Desai told Semafor in a statement that “putting Joe Biden’s inflation crisis firmly behind us has been a Day One priority” and that “the best is yet to come” on the economy.