MAGA Base Still Backs Trump at 98%, but Battleground Republicans Are Running Ads Against Him 16 Days Before Midterms

The MAGA base has not moved. The candidates who need swing voters are moving anyway.

CNN's Harry Enten presented numbers this week showing that 71% of MAGA Republicans say they are certain to vote in the 2026 midterms. The figure for Democrats is also 71%.

Trump won 99% of the MAGA Republican vote against Kamala Harris in 2024, Enten said. His approval among that group is now 98%. "There's been no real decline in MAGA support for the Trump administration," Enten said.

That is a measure of one slice of the electorate. It says nothing about independents, who decide close House races.

Battleground Republicans put distance between themselves and Trump

With Election Day set for Nov. 3, several Republicans in competitive seats are advertising their independence from the White House.

Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia has a new ad calling herself "one of the most bipartisan members of Congress." It cites a headline reading "Kiggans bucks Trump on offshore wind."

Rep. Mike Lawler of New York cut an ad about taking on "the left and the right." It includes a clip of Trump calling him a "pain in the a--" over the state and local tax deduction fight.

Veteran GOP strategist Doug Heye said none of this is a surprise. "It happens in midterms when presidents aren't popular," Heye said. He added that Trump has done "more outlandish things" that have "nothing to do with lowering costs, ending the war with Iran, etc."

The RNC rejects the premise. Spokeswoman Natalie Baldessarre said Republicans "remain united behind the president's agenda of cutting taxes, lowering drug costs and securing our communities." She accused Democrats of being in "a full-blown civil war with extremists."

The argument that the coalition is intact but the brand is not

Jason Jones, a human rights activist who says he helped build the 2024 Trump coalition, argues in an Al Jazeera opinion piece that there is no split. In his telling, the coalition of social conservatives, pro-lifers, devout Christians, disaffected leftists and first-time voters is "remarkably intact."

His complaint is with the direction of the brand. Jones blames the US-Israeli war on Iran and Trump's declaration "I am MAGA," which he says folded neoconservatives like Mark Levin into the movement. Jones predicts the brand "is now on course to be destroyed this November."

That is one activist's forecast, not a measurement. Enten's 98% figure points the other way on the base, though it does not test Jones's claim about voters who backed Trump on a promise of restraint abroad.

The money gap

The financial picture is lopsided. The RNC closed June with $128.5 million in cash. The DNC reported $16.3 million and $18.5 million in debt.

Across the three major Republican committees and two aligned super PACs, the GOP reported $657 million in cash. Comparable Democratic groups held $334 million. Trump's MAGA Inc. alone had more than $400 million heading into the fall. Republicans also hold a $139 million lead in reserved advertising for congressional races.

Elon Musk has put $276 million into Republican groups since July, a spokesman for his America PAC confirmed to Reuters. The biggest share, $158 million, went to the Senate Leadership Fund.

Total political ad spending is projected at $11.6 billion this cycle, above the 2024 record.

Trump pitched about 100 of those donors on Friday, Oct. 16, at a closed MAGA Inc. event at Mar-a-Lago. Vice President JD Vance and First Lady Melania Trump joined him on stage.

Ohio as the test case

Ohio puts the loyalty-versus-independence question on one ballot. Republican Sen. Jon Husted, appointed in 2025 to fill Vance's seat, faces former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown. In the governor's race, Democrat Amy Acton is in a close contest with Republican Vivek Ramaswamy, who appeared with Trump at a rally in Youngstown.

Vance has campaigned across the Midwest, the South and Alaska, focusing on the administration's efforts to root out fraud. His political future is tied closely to how Republicans perform, according to the AP's survey of 2028 prospects. Erika Kirk, who now leads Turning Point Action, has already endorsed a Vance run.

On the Democratic side, Gov. Gavin Newsom, who leaves office at the end of the year, backed California's Proposition 50. The new map may let Democrats gain as many as five House seats in the state. If they fall short, his argument for 2028 gets weaker.

The open question for Nov. 3 is whether Kiggans and Lawler's distancing helps them with independents, or whether the money advantage and a loyal, motivated base carry Republicans through anyway.