Vice President JD Vance told The Post Monday that the Trump administration’s agenda is on the line in the 2026 midterms and Republicans will need their voters to turn out like a presidential year— in order to keep the “crazies” at bay.
In an exclusive sitdown aboard Air Force Two, Vance lamented how voters in President Trump’s coalition “haven’t yet shown up for Republicans” in off-year elections to the degree needed — a trend he is trying to reverse to maintain control of Congress.
“I really think it’s important to kind of get people to think that … in many ways the president is on the ballot. Yes, I’m on the ballot too, but the entire agenda is on the ballot,” the vice president told The Post. “Hopefully that will generate some enthusiasm.”
“The enthusiasm normally just isn’t there among a lot of our voters for midterm elections; we’re hoping we can get it there this time around,” Vance also said.
Republicans are facing the usual headwinds of a party in power, with the generic congressional ballot favoring Democrats by more than eight percentage points this election cycle, according to the latest RealClearPolitics polling average.
That’s roughly the same advantage the Democratic Party had in the 2018 midterm elections during Trump’s first term, with a more than seven-percentage-point lead heading into Election Day.
When it flipped the House in 2022, the GOP was ahead of Democrats by an average of two-and-a-half-percentage points.
“The Republican coalition has two different turnout realities,” explained Cygnal data and insights pollster and CEO Brent Buchanan.
“Trump Republicans are still highly engaged, while traditional conservatives are 26 points less likely to say they are excited to vote, and they are the group Republicans cannot afford to leave behind,” he added.
“They do not need another recap rally of what has already happened,” Buchanan said. “They need to hear what the party will do next to make life more affordable, more stable, and more workable for their families. That is the turnout fight Republicans have to win.”
Trump has tried to defy the odds by hosting a first-ever GOP midterm convention in Dallas last week to gin up excitement and by launching a rare mid-decade redistricting push that could net the GOP about 11 more seats due to new congressional maps. Democrats need just three more seats to win the House.
Midterm elections have lower turnout than presidential ones. For instance, 64.3% of the voting-eligible population cast ballots in the 2024 presidential election, compared to 46.1% turnout in the 2022 midterms, per data from the University of Florida.
Trump doesn’t need all of his 2024 voters to hold the House and Senate, but if he can turn out 2-4 percentage points more voters in each contested election than would be typical for a midterm, Republicans will hold the House and Senate, according to projections shared by a national GOP strategist familiar with Trump’s political operation.
“We’re very bullish” about meeting that turnout target, the strategist told The Post.
That’s why Trump implored voters who make up the GOP’s base to just “pretend” that he’s on the ballot this year during his convention speech.
The Post asked Vance whether voters should start thinking about him at the top of a presidential ticket someday too, but the 2028 GOP frontrunner deflected: “I like the way the president puts it.”
“The good news is: a lot of new voters, a whole lot of excitement, enthusiasm from a broad group of people, I mean, frankly, a much more diverse group of people than traditional Republicans have gotten,” the vice president said of the MAGA base.
“The bad news is they show up for Trump; they haven’t yet shown up for Republicans,” he added. “And I think what the president’s trying to do is remind them that the Trump agenda doesn’t work if you elect a bunch of crazy people to Congress.”
In his own speech at the midterm convention, Vance urged the GOP to send the “crazies … packing” on Nov. 3, claiming Democrats were no longer “just the party of a little higher taxes, maybe some dumb regulations.”
“They’re not the party of FDR or JFK. Hell, they’re not even the party of Bill Clinton anymore,” he said. “The Democrats are the party of hatred. They’re the party that despises America and the people who built it.”
The vice president’s rhetoric indicated a play for the swing vote, in addition to the Republican base, according to Henry Olsen, a political analyst and senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center.
“I don’t believe it’s a base election,” Olsen said. “Turning out Republicans is necessary but not sufficient.”
