Nearly a Third of Republicans Say Trump Is Hurting Their Own Midterm Chances, New Poll Finds

Since Labor Day fell today, Monday, September 7, and Trump's approval rating sat at 33% in recent polling, the picture for Republicans heading into the November 3 midterms has grown more complicated.

A new poll from the Financial Times and Focaldata, reported by The Independent, found 46% of respondents overall say Trump's record since January 2025 has made it "harder" for Republicans to win their races. That number includes 30% of Republican voters themselves, almost a third of the GOP base. Only 26% of Republicans said Trump's record made things easier.

The same poll found 43% of all respondents think a Trump endorsement is more likely to hurt a Republican candidate than help one. Even among conservatives, only 48% called an endorsement helpful, less than half. Republican approval of Trump has slipped from 80% at the start of his second term to 72%, according to the FT/Focaldata data cited by The Independent.

The Dallas No-Shows

Trump is headlining a two-day midterm convention in Dallas this week, and at least 45 congressional Republicans, along with First Lady Melania Trump, are not attending, according to The Independent. Stated reasons ranged from weddings and college tours to dove hunting, though some lawmakers reportedly balked at a $25,000 ticket price.

A senior Republican working a competitive House race told Politico, as reported by The Independent: "We've told them he cannot come. Candidly, he would not be helpful here." Another House GOP candidate put the bind more bluntly: "You're fed if you mention him too much, and you're also fed if you don't stay in his good graces."

Republican strategist Kevin Madden of Penta Group told the Financial Times, as reported by The Daily Beast, that lawmakers are hearing affordability complaints in their districts while Trump dismisses them. New York Rep. Mike Lawler, defending a competitive seat, told CNN's State of the Union he disagreed with Trump calling the six-month Iran conflict "small potatoes," saying "it is serious." Trump also drew intraparty criticism for saying only "backwards and poor" people object to data centers being built nearby, a position at odds with a Gallup poll cited by The Daily Beast showing 70% of Americans oppose local data center construction.

The Economic Counter-Argument

Trump's defenders point to strong economic numbers. The August jobs report showed employers added 162,000 jobs, blowing past the 53,000 consensus estimate, according to Daily Wire, while unemployment held at 4.1% and July's initially weak report was revised from a 23,000 loss to a 21,000 gain. Wages rose 3.1% year-over-year to $37.75 an hour.

National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett told CNBC, as reported by Daily Wire: "This number was way, way better than I expected... it blew past everybody." He credited capital expensing provisions in the tax bill for driving factory construction.

Breitbart's Business Digest backed that up with harder data: factory orders rose 0.9% in July to $663.6 billion, durable goods orders are up 7.6% year-to-date, and manufacturing job openings climbed 35% year-over-year to 580,000. Durable goods manufacturers have added 72,000 jobs since December, Breitbart reported.

That runs against a separate figure cited by Fortune, drawing on a labor studies scholar's Bureau of Labor Statistics analysis: the economy has lost 75,000 manufacturing jobs, a 0.6% decline, since January 2025. Both figures can be true simultaneously since they measure different windows, since-December gains versus since-January-2025 net losses, but the contrast shows how easy it is for both sides to cherry-pick a favorable timeframe from the same government dataset.

Unions and the Swing-State Math

Union membership sits at 10.0% of the workforce nationally, down from 20.1% in 1983, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics figures cited by both Fortune and the Epoch Times. Private-sector unionization is below 6%. Fortune's analysis flagged Michigan, Pennsylvania and Nevada as states where union households exceed the national average and could swing close House and Senate races.

Separately, the Justice Department has filed charges against illegal voters in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Wisconsin, according to an aggregation by Ground News, though the underlying case details have gotten comparatively little coverage from left-leaning outlets so far.

Trump is reportedly targeting 35 competitive races personally, according to Fox News. Whether his Dallas appearance this week helps or hurts those candidates, and whether the strong jobs and manufacturing numbers can outrun affordability complaints by November 3, will shape the midterm picture.