How are the Republicans planning to fight the midterm elections?

Should the party make clear its own platform, asks Chris Stevenson, or should it concentrate on Joe Biden’s performance? And what difference will Donald Trump make?

Former president Donald Trump speaks at a rally in Conroe, Texas (Houston Chronicle/AP)

The midterm elections this year, and the next presidential elections in 2024, are becoming the focus for the leadership of the Republican Party, who seem to be increasingly confident of taking back seats in both chambers of Congress this November.

But there seems to be a split as to how best to go about it. The GOP leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, appears to favour a less-is-more approach. That is, one that keeps the focus on what he sees as the failings of Joe Biden – who has seen his approval ratings slowly fall away in recent months – and lets voters make their choice. The more Republicans put their heads above the parapet, the more it distracts from the pressure on Biden, or so that logic appears to go. “This midterm election will be a report card on the performance of this entire Democratic government: the president, the house and the Senate,” McConnell told NBC News.

This approach is summed up by Frank Luntz, a pollster who worked with Newt Gingrich: “McConnell, I assume, is hoping that anger with the Democrats will carry his members over the finish line.”

On the other side is Kevin McCarthy, the leading Republican in the House of Representatives. McCarthy is said to be intent on using seven house task forces and committees to develop a platform, with meetings over how that takes shape already believed to be taking place. The resulting platform would then be presented to voters by Republican candidates as they move from the summer into the full campaigning season in the run-up to November. Some obvious points of reference would be the economy, China, and (presumably) how the US moves past the Covid-19 pandemic (all elements that Biden and his team – plus the Democrats at large – will have to be thinking about).

For the Republicans, the person looming large over all of this is Donald Trump. In 2020, he was essentially the platform for the entire party, and on Saturday in Texas, as part of a campaign-like rally, the former president showed that little has changed. On the subject of a presidential run in 2024, and how the Department of Justice has dealt with the hundreds of people it has charged over events at the US Capitol in January 2021, Trump said: “If I run and if I win, we will treat those people from January 6 fairly. We will treat them fairly. And if it requires pardons, we will give them pardons. Because they are being treated so unfairly.”

What Trump does next is something Republican leadership will have to keep their eye on, given his continued influence on the party. And, as ever, Trump is talking big – saying over the weekend: “We are going to take back the White House.”