NEW YORK (AP) \u2014 This is not the run-up to the midterm elections that Republicans wanted. <\/p>\n
A year and a half after winning the White House by promising to lower costs and end wars, Donald Trump is a wartime president overseeing surging energy costs and an escalating overseas conflict that many in his own party do not like. <\/p>\n
He offered little clarity to a nation eager for answers this week during a prime-time address<\/a> from the White House, his first since the U.S. and Israel attacked Iran more than a month ago, simultaneously suggesting that the war was ending and expanding.<\/p>\n \u201cThanks to the progress we\u2019ve made, I can say tonight that we are on track to complete all of America\u2019s military objectives shortly, very shortly,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWe\u2019re going to hit them extremely hard over the next two to three weeks.\u201d<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s comments come roughly six months before voters across the nation begin to cast ballots in elections that will decide control of Congress and key governorships for Trump\u2019s final two years in office. For now, Republicans, who control all branches of government in Washington, are bracing for a painful political backlash. <\/p>\n \u201cYou\u2019re looking at an ugly November,\u201d warned veteran Republican pollster Neil Newhouse. \u201cAt a point in time when we need every break possible to hold the House and Senate, our edge is being chipped away.\u201d <\/p>\n Republicans confront evolving political landscape<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to overstate how dramatically the political landscape has shifted.<\/p>\n At this time last year, many Republican leaders believed there was a path to preserve their narrow House majority and easily hold the Senate. Now they privately concede that the House is all but lost and Democrats have a realistic shot at taking the Senate. <\/p>\n Republicans are also struggling to coalesce around a clear midterm message on Iran. <\/p>\n The Republican National Committee has largely avoided the war in talking points issued to surrogates over the last month. The leaders of the party\u2019s campaign committees responsible for the House and Senate declined interview requests. Many vulnerable Republican candidates sidestep the issue, unwilling to defend or challenge Trump publicly. <\/p>\n The president remains deeply popular with Republican voters, and he has vocal supporters like Sen. Lindsey Graham<\/a> of South Carolina.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was the best speech I could\u2019ve hoped for,\u201d he wrote on social media after Trump\u2019s address on Wednesday evening. Graham said Trump \u201cgave the American people a clear and coherent pathway forward.\u201d <\/p>\n Trump made little effort to sell the conflict to Americans before the initial attack. Five weeks later, at least 13 U.S. service members have been killed and hundreds more injured. Thousands more troops have converged on the region, and the Pentagon requested $200 billion in new funding.<\/p>\n The Strait of Hormuz, a key passage for a fifth of the world\u2019s oil, remains closed. The average price for a gallon of gasoline in the U.S. was $4.08 on Thursday, according to AAA, almost a full dollar higher than on President Joe Biden\u2019s last day in office. <\/p>\n On Wednesday, Trump insisted that gas prices would fall quickly once the war concluded but offered no solution for reopening the Strait of Hormuz. Instead, he invited skeptical U.S. allies to do it themselves.<\/p>\n He insisted that the war would be worth it. <\/p>\n \u201cThis is a true investment in your grandchildren and your grandchildren\u2019s future,\u201d Trump said. \u201cWhen it\u2019s all over, the United States will be safer, stronger, more prosperous and greater than it has ever been before.\u201d<\/p>\n Former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Georgia Republican who was once among Trump\u2019s most vocal allies in Congress, lashed out against his Iran policy.<\/p>\n \u201cI wanted so much for President Trump to put America First. That\u2019s what I believed he would do. All I heard from his speech tonight was WAR WAR WAR,\u201d she wrote on social media. \u201cNothing to lower the cost of living for Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n Time is not on Trump\u2019s side<\/p>\n About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say the U.S. military action in Iran has \u201cgone too far,\u201d according to AP-NORC polling from March<\/a>. Roughly a third approve of how he\u2019s handling Iran overall.<\/p>\n The possibility of sending U.S. forces into Iran also appears politically unpalatable. <\/p>\n About 6 in 10 adults are \u201cstrongly\u201d or \u201csomewhat\u201d opposed to deploying U.S. troops on the ground to fight Iran. That includes about half of Republicans. Only about 1 in 10 favor deploying troops.<\/p>\n