It isn’t every day that Republicans admit that Donald Trump is harming their midterm hopes. After all, that would require an admission of Trumpian fallibility, which is unacceptable to MAGA. But on Thursday, Kentucky Representative James Comer dropped a revealing admission on Fox News while discussing the money woes of embattled GOP incumbents.
“A lot of the individual members’ online donations are down because more of the small-dollar donors have gravitated towards MAGA Inc.,” Comer said, referring to the Super PAC overseen by Trump.
Comer’s revelation came during a discussion on Fox about the news that MAGA Inc. has spent little on midterm races out of the pot of $400 million it had raised as of July 31. Comer—a senior Republican who chairs the House Oversight Committee—said he hopes Trump’s PAC will spend more on GOP contests going forward.
“We’re going to need every penny of it,” Comer said. He carefully suggested he’s in no way criticizing Trump. Instead, he praised the president, insisting he’s “managed” his super PAC money “well” by not yet spending it on House races, supposedly to hold it for the home stretch.
But—by specifically clarifying that small donors are giving to Trump’s super PAC rather than to GOP incumbents and candidates—Comer shed light on a deeper way that Trump is screwing his party. Here’s why: If small donors are giving to MAGA Inc. to the exclusion of Republicans, it’s in no small part because Trump is helping make that happen.
Recall that Trump has repeatedly broadcast a message to his voters—in many different ways—that the GOP Congress has failed him. Trump recently elevated a long screed from a MAGA influencer who sharply criticized congressional Republicans for letting Trump down by continuing to “slow walk” everything Trump voters expect from the president’s agenda.
That sparked widespread media discussion, but it’s hardly a one-off. Trump himself recently declared that his voters are “not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans.” He emphasized this several times to drive it home, even suggesting his supporters might not turn out: “The question is, will they vote?”
Those barbs are aimed at discouraging exactly the Trump voters that Republicans need big turnout among this fall. It’s just the sort of talk that could induce small-dollar Trump supporters to…give to MAGA Inc. rather than to GOP candidates. So Comer’s admission that this is now happening underscores how badly Trump is screwing the GOP. That he’s also hoarding the money—and not spending it on GOP races—is just the cherry on the melting sundae.
There’s another layer of irony here. Trump’s theory of the case appears to be that getting rank-and-file GOP voters energized about him—and not about the GOP Congress—is the way to get them to show up in November. As The Atlantic reports, Trump has ordered up ads trumpeting his stupendous accomplishments to fire up disillusioned midterm voters.
Yet by all indications, Trump is not succeeding in energizing his own supporters about him, either. Democrats increasingly believe a key midterm dynamic is that far more voters strongly disapprove of Trump than strongly approve of him, and that this is expanding the battlefield into House districts that backed Trump by significant margins.
That reading is supported by internal polling by the Democratic-aligned House Majority PAC that was shared at my request for its data on the president. It finds that across six battleground districts HMP is targeting in Ohio, Trump’s favorable-vs.-unfavorable ratings average 42 percent to 56 percent, and his very favorable-vs.-very unfavorable numbers average 30-50.
Meanwhile, across HMP’s three key battleground districts in Florida, Trump’s favorable-vs.-unfavorable ratings are an average of 43-54, while his very favorable-vs.-very unfavorable ratings are 28-50. And across three in Iowa, those findings are 41-55 and 28-49.
For context, note that in 2024, Trump won all these battleground districts on average by a significant margin. Yet across all of them, Trump is viewed very unfavorably by an average of around 50 percent, while he’s seen very favorably by around 30 percent. That’s very, very bad.
Public surveys bear this out. Fox News’s recent polling of the most competitive Senate races found Trump’s very favorable-vs.-very unfavorable numbers at 27-47 in Iowa, 27-43 in Texas, and 24-46 in North Carolina.
The pattern is clear: Even in areas where Trump won, there’s far, far more intensified grassroots energy against him than for him. Nationally, the latest Strength in Numbers poll finds that those who strongly disapprove of Trump outnumber strong approvers by nearly three to one. And Democrats now hold a clear registration edge of 10 points, 49-39, when independent leaners are included. As James Downie writes at MS NOW, that signals waning energy behind Trump inside his own party.
So, to recap: Trump essentially keeps telling his supporters that the GOP Congress has failed him. They are, by Comer’s admission, now giving to Trump’s super PAC to the detriment of GOP candidates. Meanwhile, Trump plans to spend the loot he’s raked in on ads promoting himself, and as of now, he’s refraining from spending it in the GOP’s most contested races. Yet he isn’t even energizing his own voters all that much, and regardless, that group is massively dwarfed by those energized by their hatred of Trump to vote against Republicans. Really, it all couldn’t be happening to a bunch of nicer lickspittles.
