The Republican candidates walking a Trump tightrope

ByAnthony Zurcher North America correspondent in Florida.

Key points

• There are few Republican politicians as loyal to the president as Floridian House Congressman Byron Donalds.
• That has left Republicans running for office in the Congressional elections on 3 November with an agonising choice – should they be distancing themselves from Trump?
• Meanwhile in Texas, Governor Greg Abbott last month went to Texarkana to host a "rural affordability roundtable".
• And in Iowa, Ashley Hinson, a Republican congresswoman running for Senate, unveiled her own "affordability agenda".
• Hinson additionally lately pressed the president to swiftly end the Iran war – a sentiment echoed by Republican Senate candidates in Ohio and Michigan.

As US President Donald Trump hits the campaign trail in the final sprint to the midterm elections, he is launching an emphatic defence of America's economic performance, trying – as he often does – to bend reality to his will.

"We have the best economic numbers of any president in the history of our country, and yet people don't know about it because the press won't talk about it, " he remarked last week.

While some economic indicators, including roaring stock market indexes and low US poverty rates, are indeed historic, the overall picture is not almost as rosy.

Trump is often dismissive of reservations concerning affordability and the high cost of living in the US, describing them as "fake" and a Democrat-inspired "hoax".

For context, the American public, nevertheless, sees it differently – and some key economic indicators provide ample evidence for their discontent. Inflation remains high at 3.4%, outpacing wage expansion. The average cost of petrol has soared to $4.37 (£3.30) a gallon and beef rates are at a record high.

According to a YouGov survey, 63% of respondents believe the economy is "getting worse". While 26% approve of his handling of the economy overall, an AP/NORC poll published last week identified just 17% of adult Americans approve of the president's handling of cost-of-living problems.

Those polls additionally suggest that numerous of Trump's policies, including tariffs, aggressive immigration enforcement and the ongoing conflict with Iran, are widely unpopular.

"We ask our voters their motivation to turn out, and what we find is cost of living, cost of living, cost of living, " remarked Avery James, the director of communications at the Republican-aligned polling business Echelon Insights. "That's the top issue."

Their fear is that by echoing his sunny outlook they risk losing a number of electoral races that are at present projected to be particularly tight. But they additionally know that being seen to break with the president on the state of the economy is far from consequence free. The economy looming sizeable.

There are few Republican politicians as loyal to the president as Floridian House Congressman Byron Donalds. And there are few US states as traditionally hospitable to Republicans as Florida.

But even in the president's adopted home. It he carried in each of his three elections and which hasn't had a Democratic governor since 1999, candidates like Donalds are finding themselves having to adapt their pro-Republican messaging to acknowledge economic reservations.

Donalds – who stood by Trump as he fought his way back to power after his 2020 election defeat and took a prominent role in his 2024 election campaign – is now running for governor of Florida, with Trump's encouragement and enthusiastic endorsement.

When I saw him at a Hispanic church in Kissimmee, he was preaching to the proverbial choir – but pitching his message with a nod to the fact that for plenty of capital is at present tight.

"We're the best state in America, " he remarked before acknowledging: "But success has gotten expensive."

He ticked through a laundry list of Florida constituents – retirees, teachers, emergency workers, restaurant staff and local administration employees, flagging that they need to be able to "make ends meet".

In his stump speech, Donalds didn't mention Trump at all. He leaned heavily into stories of his own financial hardship during his younger years, of living paycheque to paycheque and waiting tables at the traditional southern style restaurant chain Cracker Barrel. What are the US midterms? A simple guide.

When he invited audience questions, there were the usual cultural hot-button topics, like the perceived threat of Sharia law in America, transgender athletes in women's sports and youth crime in public spaces.

But his supporters additionally wanted to talk concerning the high cost of housing – insurance, taxes, mortgage rates and home-owner fees – and healthcare worker shortages.

Trump may have mocked the term affordability, but Donalds – who is criss-crossing the state on an "affordability tour" – isn't the only Republican candidate talking regarding high costs.

It was a similar track at a campaign event in a Tampa seafood market the next day, when Bryan Avila. This person is running for lieutenant governor on the same ticket as Donalds, took questions on energy rates and data centre construction.

"Everything is going up in prices, from food to even books for people going to college, " remarked John Carroll. This person serves on a Florida county housing commission. "It's a challenge no matter which party is in power, but here in Florida it's been Republican for so long."

"We must lower costs for Texans in every corner of our state, and with my affordability agenda we will help make Texas the most affordable state in America."

"Iowans are paying the price for Washington's failures, and they deserve real relief that actually lowers costs, " she remarked.

Hinson additionally lately pressed the president to swiftly end the Iran war – a sentiment echoed by Republican Senate candidates in Ohio and Michigan. Two of Hinson's Iowa colleagues in the House of Representatives went so far as to vote for a Democratic-backed measure to curtail Trump's war powers in Iran.

For the past two years it has been Republicans who control the levers of power in the nation's capital – from the White House to both chambers of Congress. Inevitably, that makes for a challenging rhetorical pirouette among Republican candidates this time round when it comes to touching on Trump's less popular policies.

Even Donalds has faced allegations that he is trying to open daylight between himself and Trump. The media was awash in reports lately that he had removed most prominent mentions of Trump from his campaign website.

It was a story Donalds rapidly denied – and one that prompted an angry response from the president himself.

"Another Fake Story is that a very close friend of mine, a man I endorsed very early, Byron Donalds, is taking me off his website and campaign materials, " Trump posted on his Truth Social website. "If Florida thought the story that Byron 'dropped' me was true, he would lose the election, and that would be a terrible thing because he's going to be a fantastic governor!"

Donalds did say, nevertheless, that when it comes to addressing how to tackle high costs, Trump shouldn't be a factor.

"That's not even about President Trump, " he remarked to journalists after the website story broke. "I'm the one asking for the votes for the people of Florida to be their governor."

While Donalds and Trump remain tight, the same cannot be remarked for Republican candidates who have gone farther in their criticism.

Congresswoman Maria Salazar aired a television spot in which she bluntly remarked Trump's immigration crackdown had "gone too far". While other potential candidates had been on the receiving end of his anger during the primaries, trump reposted a handful of messages on Truth Social accusing the Cuban-American Salazar of betrayal and calling for her to drop out.

According to Marc Short, a Republican strategist and former chief of staff to Donald Trump's first vice-president, Mike Pence, it's hard not to see Trump's move as a warning directed at any other Republicans who might consider a public break with him. But he adds that Trump's ire isn't the only reason Republican candidates should approach this strategy with caution.

"It's almost disingenuous now to try to create separation, " he notes. "I think for voters it looks opportunistic."

Candidates like Salazar, who have stuck with Trump for years, have little choice but to rise and fall with the president's fortunes, he remarked. Republicans who have built their own brand and identities – like Senator Susan Collins in Maine – can more convincingly draw distinctions between themselves and the president.

Meanwhile, the fact that so plenty of residents are downbeat regarding the economy, combined with the fact that the Republicans have been in power in Washington suggests that Republican candidates are facing challenging headwinds in November's elections. "I think they're hurricane force right now, " remarked Short.

For now, the Republican candidates walking a Trump tightrope remains the part of the story worth watching, and further updates are likely as more details are confirmed.