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Republicans grappling with Tuesday’s Democratic romp are warning the White House that no matter how many foreign policy goals the president achieves, voters will care about the economy more.
Trump traveled to 13 countries in his first eight months, and claims to have ended eight wars. World leaders come to the White House for Oval Office sit-downs almost every week; negotiations over tariffs are permanently front and center.
Many of Trump’s biggest second-term victories, like brokering a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, came on the world stage. Trump didn’t even let a crippling government shutdown curtail his recent Asia trip, as Obama did in 2013.
Now Republicans see Tuesday’s ballot-box repudiation of the GOP as a reminder that voters respond primarily to the cost of living. And Trump allies want the administration to shift its emphasis from the international to the domestic, reminding voters of the tax cuts they passed.
“Maybe one of the only real lessons of the election is a reminder that it always turns out to be economic issues, kitchen-table issues,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas. “I’m glad the president’s had some very good success internationally, but that’s not what motivates voters. I think he does [understand that]. I know his team does.”
Despite Democrats’ double-digit margins of victory in the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races, Republicans and White House officials say they were unsurprised. They’ve already acknowledged Republicans put forward weak candidates, and Democrats successfully focused on the No. 1 issue facing voters: affordability.
James Blair, one of Trump’s senior advisers, told Politico that focus is why democratic socialist (and now mayor-elect of New York City) Zohran Mamdani did so well in his race — and added that Trump will be “very, very focused on prices and cost of living” going forward.
“What President Trump has accomplished overseas with trade deals and with peace talks is a significant historical achievement,” said Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo. “But I do think that the focus on domestic policy priorities should be very top of mind.”
For the White House, it’s a delicate balancing act. One person close to the White House argued that Trump had to get most of his foreign policy goals done first this year, insisting that the administration would come full-circle and return to domestic politics.
“Knowing that everything after the off-year election is going to be the economy, they ran for the finish line on international stuff,” this person said. “The shift to domestic economic issues, domestic politics, has always been in the works.”
White House spokesman Kush Desai told Semafor in a statement that “putting Joe Biden’s inflation crisis firmly behind us has been a Day One priority” and that “the best is yet to come” on the economy.
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The administration sees its foreign policy priorities as inherently intertwined with its domestic agenda: Trump touts tariffs, for example, as a way to bring money into the US, even as critics argue they add to Americans’ cost burden.
“So much stands ahead of us right now … that an off-year election in blue states and deep blue cities really doesn’t bother me,” the person close to the White House said.
Yet Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, said the election this week amounted to a “real warning sign” for Republicans, citing anger on the left and complacency among his party’s voters.
“The record for the first year is extraordinary. We have to communicate that to the voters. Look at the ‘one big, beautiful bill.’ That is historic legislation. And most people don’t know the major elements of it,” Cruz said. “It’s a powerful record to run on. But it’s incumbent on us to lay this out to the voters; they’re not going to know without us laying out the details.”
The White House already seems to be refocusing its messaging on things like costs: Thursday’s announcement on weight loss drugs, Desai said, which delivers “unprecedented health care savings for everyday Americans.”
But the administration shows little sign of pushing foreign policy off the front burner. The president is slated to meet with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán on Friday. His schedule on Monday is expected to include a sit-down with the Syrian president.
A much-anticipated visit by Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman is still on the books for later this month, despite growing anxieties about the ongoing shutdown.
And even as White House officials like Blair acknowledge that the key to Democrats’ success came from their messaging around affordability, don’t expect any hard pivots from Trump. For him, it’s more about re-emphasizing topics relating to the economy than switching out the playbook entirely.
“Everyone is saying we’re pivoting,” one White House official said. “We’re not. We have always talked about affordability and economy. We’re just continuing to emphasize that, which we have already been doing.”
Room for Disagreement
Not everyone is convinced economic talk is the way back into voters’ good graces. One political strategist close to the White House argued that part of what Trump is doing is building a legacy — and that big foreign policy wins go down in history.
“No one wants to visit a presidential library that has an exhibit about egg prices going down 10 cents,” the person said. “They want a story about destroying America’s enemies and want America to feel like Tom Cruise in Top Gun. That’s what builds legacies. That’s what puts you on Mount Rushmore.”
Shelby and Burgess’ View
Beyond the debate over foreign policy versus domestic pocketbook issues, the Trump administration is facing another huge risk: that its messaging on the economy might not resonate with voters.
Biden was excoriated by Republicans when he pushed what’s often called his “Bidenomics” messaging and tried to convince voters that the economy was great — even when the on-the-ground reality for many was much different.
Trump and his team talk a lot about costs being lower (on Thursday, they cited a Wells Fargo report showing that the cost of a typical Thanksgiving menu has fallen by about 2 to 3%). But they’ll need to find a way to also legitimize the experiences of many Americans who aren’t feeling the upside of those numbers — and if they can’t do that, they risk repeating their predecessor’s mistakes.