The Shrinking Mandate

The road to November

The plane lifted off from Washington on the morning of October 5 with a president who insisted he was doing great. Donald Trump spoke to reporters on the tarmac before departing for Nebraska, a stop on a month that would take him through ten states. A question about polls showing him losing ground with Latino voters drew a familiar response. “I’m doing great,” he said. “You’re CNN, you’re fake news.”

The numbers he was brushing aside were stark. A Reuters poll showed his approval at a record low 32 percent. According to an NBC News/Telemundo poll released that Sunday, 59 percent of Latino voters preferred a Democratic-controlled Congress, double the number two years earlier, and just 24 percent of Hispanic Americans approved of his performance. He had begun his second term with an approval rating just over 50 percent, according to the Silver Bulletin. By early October it was sitting at about 37 percent, with 61 percent disapproving.

In Nebraska he held a rally meant to shore up the GOP’s midterm vote. On stage he signed an executive order to allow anyone to purchase tax-free red-dyed diesel for any reason, the document personally delivered by his aide Natalie Harp. The event was part of a broader push. The president’s name is not on the ballot on November 3, when Americans will choose all 435 members of the House and 35 of the 100 Senate seats, but Trump has urged Republicans to pretend it is by voting for him as an endorsement of his actions so far. The midterms are a verdict on how a president is doing, and historically the party of a sitting president tends to lose seats in Congress.

The agenda for the tour reflected anxiety. Republican committees and their super PACs were pulling money out of purple states like Georgia and North Carolina and putting it into dark red states like Kansas, while continuing to spend heavily to save a seat in Texas. House sources were reporting Republicans now having to spend money in states the president carried by ten points or more. The main priority had become defending Trump seats. Offense remained in one blue state, Michigan, but most spending was defense.

The ads

In late September the White House began running spots that ended with the disclaimer “Paid for by the U.S. Government.” Three messages aired on broadcast and streaming platforms, including during Sunday political talk shows and college and NFL football games.

The first included images of Trump saying, “Together we will defeat communism, socialism, and Marxism in America. America will never be a communist country.” Viewers repeatedly heard the words “love me,” lyrics from a JMSN song. Near the end, UFC CEO Dana White complimented Trump and talked about him fighting so hard for the country he loves. The second, a minute long, featured video and audio from Trump’s July 3 speech near Mount Rushmore, in which the president said, “We are the freest people on Earth, and by the grace of God, the United States of America is the most successful, most accomplished, most exceptional nation ever to exist in human history.” It ended with him saying, “This is only the beginning of the golden age of America.”

The third was black and white. Trump walked and stared into the camera as a voiceover said he would “demolish the deep state,” “expel the warmongers from our government,” “drive out the globalists,” and “cast out the communists, Marxists and fascists.” It ended: “We will rout the fake news media, and we will liberate America from these villains once and for all.” The video was almost identical to an ad from Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign.

The White House described them on September 25 as public service announcements. “The announcements are very clearly not campaign ads; President Trump is not on the ballot and there is no call to action. Instead, the announcements are a reminder for Americans to love their country and know why it’s worth defending — at home, at the border, and abroad.” The release said administrations of both parties have used public service announcements to explain policy and make the case for the nation’s direction, citing examples from George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

Legal experts did not see a correlation. Richard Painter, a corporate law professor and former White House ethics lawyer for George W. Bush, told FactCheck.org the Trump White House ads are “so clearly propaganda,” which generally refers to government communications intended to manipulate or influence public opinion. John G. Geer, a professor of political science at Vanderbilt University, said his perception is that the Trump White House ads are more political. “We’ll see what the courts say,” he said — if a lawsuit brings the matter to the judiciary.

Four ethics experts wrote in the Contrarian on September 28 that these videos are not “public service announcements” as the White House claims. “They are clear attempts to boost Republicans’ chances in the impending midterm elections given their sagging poll numbers. The timing, content, and format of the videos all suggest they are covert attempts directed at the success of the Republican party.” Two of the ads highlighting Trump include references to defeating communism or communists, which is what Trump regularly calls democratic socialists running for Congress.

According to AdImpact, which tracks media spending, the spots had cost at least $1.4 million by the end of September. The Guardian reported the ads cost at least $1.5 million in federal funds. Criticism came from both sides. Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on Monday that while “I like the message … it shouldn’t be paid for with taxpayer dollars.” Senator John Kennedy said politicians should not spend taxpayer funds on promotional ads. “I don’t think any public official, including President Trump or Kristi Noem or John Kennedy, should spend public money on private ads for themselves,” the Louisiana lawmaker said.

Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire introduced a measure, blocked by a Republican, denouncing the administration for using government funds for the ads. “It is the sense of the Senate that the advertisements promoting President Donald Trump that aired in September 2026, which included the direct language ‘paid for by the U.S. Government,’ should not be paid for by the United States government,” the measure reads.

The reversal

On October 6, Trump announced on social media he would stop using US taxpayer funds to pay for television ads he fronted, following bipartisan pushback. “The Radical Left is upset with the fact that I am taking Ads, which I consider to be a positive promotion for our Great U.S.A., and paying for them with U.S.A. money,” he wrote. He said it is “a rather standard thing to do” but that he has decided to pay for the “Patriotic Ads” himself and with money he raised through his MAGA Inc super political action committee.

The Guardian reported the same day that Trump said his Super PAC would pay for taxpayer-funded ads that sparked outcry. MAGA Inc is Trump’s political war chest, which had amassed more than $400 million by the end of July. Trump has begun to tap it to boost Republican candidates across the US ahead of midterm elections. The White House said Monday night MAGA Inc would pay for such ads in the future. It did not answer questions on how it or Trump might prove that his political funds were being used on ads.

California Senator Adam Schiff called for the White House to show proof it had stopped using taxpayer dollars to fund the ads. “Let’s see the proof this illegal waste of your taxes is over for good. And that he pays the money back. We don’t want the U.S. taxpayers to be the latest contractors to get stiffed,” Schiff said in a social media post.

Last week, two congressional Democrats asked federal watchdogs to investigate whether the Trump administration illegally used taxpayer money to air television spots that began airing in late September. Jamie Raskin, the top Democrat on the House judiciary committee, and California congressman George Whitesides wrote to the government accountability office and the office of special counsel, describing the commercials as “desperate pre-election propaganda.” Legal experts said the ads might violate federal statutes, including a law against congressionally appropriated funds being used for “publicity or propaganda” and one limiting the partisan political activities of government employees.

The message under strain

On the campaign trail Trump continued to promise payouts to voters if Republicans win in the midterms. He talked about $5,000 dividends, $90 checks to Medicare enrollees and $500 rebates to some Obamacare customers. Republican candidates were not picking up the messaging. They were more focused on affordability issues voters raised about the price of gas, groceries, housing and healthcare. Candidates stood in grocery stores talking about things being too expensive, acknowledging pain rather than echoing the president’s payout talk.

Key issues dominating the race were the economy and immigration. Inflation remained above the level targeted by the US Federal Reserve, partly down to the war the US and Israel started with Iran in February. Democrats argued Trump’s programme of trade tariffs also pushed up prices. Republicans said Trump delivered on a major campaign pledge in 2024 by tightening the border and launching a widespread crackdown on illegal immigration. Concerns over AI had grown in urgency in recent weeks. Senior politicians from both parties agreed on the need to regulate it, setting themselves in opposition to Trump, who rejected the idea of laws to control development of the technology.

The Republican majority is slender. They have 218 seats in the House, the minimum number needed to control it, plus one independent who votes with them. In the Senate they have 53 seats and the minimum needed for control is 51. If Democrats win back control of at least one chamber, they will gain power to bring their own laws to the floor and use committees to investigate aspects of the Trump presidency. Corruption allegations, the new White House ballroom and ICE tactics could be subject to scrutiny. There is a debate within the Democratic Party about whether to impeach Trump.

If the Republican Party stays in control of Congress, Trump will be able to keep going with his plans for the remainder of his time in office. He cannot run for president a third time. After the midterms, speculation will build about who might be his successor as the Republican presidential nominee for 2028 and who might compete against that person for the Democrats.

A doctored story

Amid the rallies, a false claim spread online that Trump had thanked Elon Musk for making every Republican vote count three times. Snopes found the image was a doctored version of a real Truth Social post. The sentence about Musk did not appear in Trump’s original post.

On October 3, 2026, Trump wrote on Truth Social: “Republicans must WIN the 2026 Midterm Elections, and we must use every appropriate tool — Whether you vote early, absentee, by mail, or in-person, we must ‘swamp’ the Radical Left Dumocrats with massive turnout! SO IMPORTANT — PLEASE GET OUT AND VOTE. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” The fake highlighted line about Musk was added after “we must ‘swamp’ the Radical Left Dumocrats with massive turnout!” The post in the screenshot is clearly edited, based on the nonsense phrase “Dummods” which appears to be a garbled version of “Dumocrats.” Snopes found no evidence of Trump thanking Musk on Truth Social for making “every Republican vote” count as three votes.

The episode underscored how the midterms have become a contest of narrative as much as numbers. Four weeks out, the White House is defending its messaging, Republicans are spending defensively in states they once considered safe, and a president with a sinking approval rating is telling reporters he’s doing great while the country reads the polls.