Trump says Democrats and the media are misleading voters who are concerned about high costs and the economy. Republican officials aiming to avoid another defeat in next fall’s midterms are encouraging candidates to embrace the president fully and talk more about his accomplishments.

Those are the major takeaways from a series of private conversations, briefings and official talking points involving major Republican decision-makers across Washington, including inside the White House, after their party’s losses Nov. 4. Their assessment highlights the extent to which the fate of the Republican Party is tied to Trump, a term-limited president who insists the economy under his watch has never been stronger.

That’s even as an increasing number of voters report a different reality in their lives.

But with few exceptions, the Trump lieutenants who lead the GOP’s political strategy have no desire to challenge his wishes or beliefs.

“Republicans are entering next year more unified behind President Trump than ever before,” Republican National Committee spokesperson Kiersten Pels said. “The party is fully aligned behind his America First agenda and the results he’s delivering for the American people. President Trump’s policies are popular, he drives turnout, and standing with him is the strongest path to victory.”

Trump’s approval is similar to former Presidents Barack Obama, a Democrat, and George W. Bush, a Republican, at the same point in their terms, however. Their parties had major losses in midterm elections.

Trump insists there is no affordability problem

Since the election, the White House has quietly decided to shift its message to focus more on affordability.

Much of the first year of Trump’s second term has been dominated by his trade wars, his crackdown on illegal immigration, his decision to send National Guard troops into American cities and the longest government shutdown in U.S. history.

Trump has talked more about affordability in the days since Election Day. On Friday, he slashed tariffs on beef and other commodities that consumers say cost too much. But Trump’s primary message is that the economy is better and consumer prices lower than as reported by the media. It’s much the same message that Democratic President Joe Biden and his allies spent years pushing, with little success.

In a social media post Friday, Trump said costs are “tumbling down.”

“Affordability is a lie when used by the Dems. It is a complete CON JOB,” Trump wrote. “Thanksgiving costs are 25% lower this year than last, under Crooked Joe! We are the Party of Affordability!”

A few days earlier, on Fox News, he asserted, “We have the greatest economy in history.”

Trump’s numbers about the cost of Thanksgiving dinners are off. Grocery prices are 2.7% higher than they were in 2024.

Economic worries were the dominant concern for voters in this month’s elections, according to the AP Voter Poll.

Republican strategist Doug Heye said Trump’s approach is not necessarily helpful for the Republican Party or its candidates, who already face a difficult political environment in 2026 when voters will decide the balance of power in Congress. Historically, the party occupying the White House has significant losses in nonpresidential elections.

“Republicans need to relay to voters that they understand what they’re going through and that they’re trying to fix it,” Heye said. “That can be hard to do when the president takes a nonmetaphorical wrecking ball to portions of the White House, which distract so much of Washington and the media.”

“Candidates cannot afford to be distracted,” Heye added. “As we saw in the recent elections, especially in Virginia, if you’re not talking about what voters are talking about, they will tune you out.”

A view from a key governor’s race

The reality outside Washington suggests that not every Republican candidate shares Trump’s outlook.

New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, a House Republican leader who began a campaign for governor last week, said there is no question about the top issue for her constituents: affordability. She also played down her party’s focus on conservative cultural priorities, including transgender athletes, which was a top Republican focus in the recent Virginia governor’s race.

“Certainly I support women and girls sports and protecting them, but as you see in all of our messaging, we’re focused on the top issues, which every conversation with voters is about the high taxes and spending, the unaffordability,” Stefanik told The Associated Press.

She offered a nuanced perspective on Trump’s leadership, unwilling to criticize any of his major policies or governing decisions, but also unwilling to say her party is fully unified behind him.

“My sense is our party is fully united behind firing Kathy Hochul,” Stefanik said of New York’s Democratic governor, when asked about her party’s support for Trump. “I am laser focused on delivering for New Yorkers and putting New Yorkers first.”

While Stefanik said it is important for the governor to have “an effective working relationship” with Trump, she declined to say whether she would support a hypothetical Trump move to send the National Guard to New York City, as he has threatened. “It wouldn’t need to happen if there was a Republican governor,” she said.

Stefanik’s comments reflect the challenge ahead for Republican candidates running in a challenging political terrain.

Defiant talking points

The Republican National Committee, which serves as the political arm of Trump’s White House, issued a series of talking points that shrug off the recent election losses as a byproduct of Democratic voter advantage in the states where the top races played out.

The talking points, obtained by The Associated Press, ignore Republican losses in Georgia and Pennsylvania. They also overstate Trump’s political strength, claiming that he is more popular than Obama and Bush were at the same time in their tenures.

The claim has been echoed across conservative media in recent days.

An AP polling analysis finds that Trump’s approval is not higher than Obama’s or of Bush at a similar point in their second terms.

Trump’s approval, at 36% in a November poll by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research is slightly higher than it was at this point in his first term. But both Obama and Bush has approval ratings were in the low 40s at this point in their second terms, according to Gallup polling, which is similar to where Trump landed in Gallup’s latest approval poll in October.

For Obama and Bush, their parties had big losses in the midterm elections that followed.

The Republican messaging crafted by Trump’s team, however, doubles down on supporting the president and his policies.

The recent elections “were not a referendum on President Trump, Republicans in Congress, or the MAGA Agenda,” the RNC talking points state. To win in 2026, “Make America Great Again” voters “will need to show up at the ballot box; President Trump and Republicans are going to make that happen.”

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Associated Press writers Will Weissert and Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.