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On Friday, President Donald Trump will return to his political comfort zone: onstage at a rally in a key battleground district. Trump’s visit to Rocky Mount in North Carolina’s 1st District to campaign with Senate candidate and former Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Whatley comes on the heels of a trip to a Pennsylvania swing county last week.
The Senate race in North Carolina is expected to rank among the most competitive in the country, with Democrats coalescing behind former Gov. Roy Cooper. Whatley has been the front-runner for the GOP nod, but he got a new primary challenger Thursday with Michele Morrow, the party’s losing nominee for state school superintendent last year, entering the race.
Republicans hope the president’s rallies will provide their candidates with a jolt of energy heading into next year’s midterm elections. Trump will be an active presence on the campaign trail in 2026, his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, recently told conservative online talk show “The Mom View.”
But is the magic still there? The first year of Trump’s return to office has been marked by sagging poll numbers and signs of a fractured MAGA base. And Trump himself won’t be on the ballot, so it might take more than a series of packed rallies to persuade low-propensity voters to turn out. Democrats need a net gain of just three seats to take the House majority.
Trump would hardly be the first party leader to drag down the under ticket. In 2022, first lady Jill Biden — not her husband, the president — was Democrats’ most in-demand swing district surrogate.
Midterms are notoriously tricky for any president to navigate. In 2018, during Trump’s first midterm cycle, House Republicans lost a net of 41 seats.
At his Pennsylvania rally, Trump waved off concerns about affordability, calling it a Democratic hoax. And in a combative prime-time address Wednesday night, the president defended his record, blamed the Biden administration for the nation’s fiscal woes and made a series of bold predictions, including an upcoming “economic boom the likes of which the world has never seen.”
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called the speech “unhinged” in an interview with MS NOW and, echoing what has been a familiar Democratic argument for months, said the president had “made things worse for the American people.”
Trump has 11 months to counter that perception, and voters will hear a lot from him and his allies about key provisions of his sweeping tax and domestic policy law, including tax breaks on tips and overtime pay and other benefits.
“It’s interesting, when I’m not running, we don’t do as well, and I’m going to try and get that changed for the midterms,” Trump told reporters Wednesday in the Oval Office.
Starting gate
Church and state: As Democrats look beyond 2024’s bruising defeats, some candidates are challenging the idea that religion has no place in an increasingly secular party. The 2026 midterm elections will feature a growing cast of Democratic contenders who studied theology or serve as members of the clergy, including Lutheran minister Sarah Trone Garriott, running in an Iowa swing district; Alaska pastor Matt Schultz, seeking the state’s at-large House seat; and Presbyterian seminarian James Talarico, who’s running for Senate in Texas.
The year in elections: We looked back at the major elections of 2025 and the key moments and developments that will shape the 2026 midterm elections.
Newhouse out: Washington Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican who voted to impeach Donald Trump but twice beat back Trump-endorsed challengers, has decided not to seek reelection next year.
Veasey out: Texas Rep. Marc Veasey, who made a surprise last-minute entry last week into the race for Tarrant County judge, said Monday that he wouldn’t run for the position after all and will retire at the end of his current term.
Health care fight continues: Four House Republicans joined Democrats to force a vote to extend expiring enhanced health insurance subsidies for three years, setting up a floor vote in January. The four members — Pennsylvania Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, Rob Bresnahan Jr. and Ryan Mackenzie and New York Rep. Mike Lawler — are no stranger to readers of this newsletter, as they all face competitive races next year.
Photos of the year: Don’t miss highlights of the year from Roll Call photojournalists Bill Clark and Tom Williams. The two selected their favorite news photos and feature photos from 2025.
Retiree resolutions: Roll Call’s Jackie Wang spoke to several retiring lawmakers about their New Year’s resolutions as they approach their final year in the House. Some of the goals are personal (who doesn’t want to eat better in the new year?) and some are work-related.
Year One: It’s been an eventful first year for the House freshman class of the 119th Congress. Our colleague Nina Heller spoke to many of them about the highs and lows and how serving in the House compares with what they expected.
ICYMI
Battleground launches: Republican Army veteran Laurie Buckhout, who fell short of ousting North Carolina Democrat Don Davis last year, announced she will seek a rematch in the state’s 1st District, which was newly redrawn to favor the GOP. In the neighboring 3rd District, a Trump-voting seat that became less Republican under the new map, Army veteran Allison Jaslow, a onetime executive director of the DCCC, and former state Rep. Raymond Smith are seeking the Democratic nod to challenge GOP Rep. Greg Murphy. In Florida, Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer has joined the GOP race to take on Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz in the 23rd District. And Arizona state Rep. Joseph Chaplik, a member of the Grand Canyon State’s legislative Freedom Caucus, announced a bid for the open 1st District, setting up a primary with former state GOP Chair Gina Swoboda, who has Trump’s endorsement.
Primary challengers: Massachusetts Rep. Katherine M. Clark, the No. 2 House Democrat, has drawn a primary challenge from former Waltham City Councilor Jonathan Paz. In Mississippi, Evan Turange, a former aide to Sens. Charles E. Schumer of New York and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, announced a campaign against House Homeland Security ranking member Bennie G. Thompson, setting up a potential generational primary fight in the deep-blue 2nd District.
Dropping out: In North Carolina, Rocky Mount Mayor Sandy Roberson ended his campaign for the 1st District, leaving a crowded field of Republicans challenging Davis. In New Jersey, former Summit City Councilman Greg Vartan is dropping his bid for the 7th District and will instead take on a role with the Union County Democratic organization. Democrats still have a busy primary to take on GOP Rep. Thomas H. Kean Jr. In Connecticut, Democrat Jack Perry, a former Southington Town Council member, said he was dropping his primary challenge to Rep. John B. Larson, while in Iowa, Air Force veteran Douglas Jensen exited the crowded GOP race to succeed Rep. Randy Feenstra, who is running for governor.
Dem endorsements: Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Virginia Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger have endorsed Rep. Angie Craig’s bid for Minnesota’s open Senate seat. In Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro endorsed firefighter union chief Bob Brooks in the five-way Democratic primary to take on Mackenzie in the 8th District. In Texas, state Rep. Jolanda Jones, who placed third in last month’s special election for the state’s 18th District, is backing former Houston City Council Member Amanda Edwards in the all-Democratic Jan. 31 runoff against Christian Menefee.
Huizenga will seek reelection: Michigan Rep. Bill Huizenga, who opted against a Senate run earlier this year, announced Monday that he would seek reelection to the 4th District next year. Democrats are targeting his southwestern Michigan seat, which Trump carried by 6 points last year.
AI Janet Mills: The NRSC has posted an ad, flagged by Semafor, that features AI footage of Maine Gov. Janet Mills, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to take on Republican Sen. Susan Collins.
Guv roundup: Duke Rodriguez, a cannabis entrepreneur who previously ran New Mexico’s Human Services Department, is running for governor, joining a Republican field that includes Rio Rancho Mayor Gregg Hull and state Sen. Steve Lanier. In Ohio, car builder and YouTube personality Casey Putsch joined former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in seeking the Republican gubernatorial nomination. And in Wisconsin, businessman Eric Hovde, who narrowly lost a bid for Senate last year, said he would not run for governor in 2026. The GOP primary to succeed retiring Democratic Gov. Tony Evers currently includes Rep. Tom Tiffany and Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann.
#MNSEN: Retired sports broadcaster Michele Tafoya is getting closer to announcing a bid for Minnesota’s open Senate seat, recently meeting with NRSC officials. Democrats Craig and Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan are running for the seat of retiring Sen. Tina Smith, but Republicans haven’t yet landed a high-profile recruit.
Nathan’s notes
The 2026 midterms are at a crossroads, Roll Call elections analyst Nathan L. Gonzales of Inside Elections writes. While the elections are still nearly 11 months away and voter sentiment could yet improve in Republicans favor, current signs suggest Democrats will make sizable gains next year, according to Nathan. In this week’s column, he spells out two midterm outcomes that appear most likely at this point.
What we’re reading
To run or not to run: NOTUS asked House Republicans if they plan to seek reelection as rumors about potential retirements have peaked in recent weeks. Most say they plan to run again, but some suggested they were still deciding — and many were curious about the reporters’ findings.
Grab a chair: Puck News sat down with the chairs of the two House campaign arms, NRCC head Richard Hudson and DCCC chief Suzan DelBene, for a conversation about the current political landscape heading into the 2026 midterms. Topics included the push to redraw congressional maps across the country, and both said they’d prefer that mid-decade redistricting not happen again.
Autopsy DOA: Democratic leaders ordered an autopsy of the 2024 election, saying it would be an essential tool to understand what went wrong for the party. But on Thursday, DNC Chair Ken Martin told The New York Times that those findings will be kept from the public.
The chief speaks: Political junkies would have found it hard to miss the remarkably candid quotes from White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles’ interviews with Vanity Fair that were released this week in a two-part series. Meanwhile, The Washington Post caught up with photographer Christopher Anderson, whose photos of Trump administration officials that accompanied the Vanity Fair articles have also caused a stir.
The count: 1.8 years
That’s the median career lifespan of a campaign manager, according to data crunched by Jordan Lieberman, CEO of the digital advertising firm Powers Interactive.
And 51 percent of them “work one year and disappear,” Lieberman, a former campaign manager himself, writes on his Substack.
Looking at the numbers, he argues that 2026 could feature a lot of campaign managers who never got early field organizing experience because they came up during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“This is the first COVID-trained manager class with no field experience, no apprenticeship model, atrophied local capacity, remote-first culture, and weakened institutional memory,” Lieberman writes.
Coming up
Friday is the candidate filing deadline in North Carolina, with Mississippi’s cutoff date to follow on Dec. 26. Three states have already seen their candidate filing deadlines close: Illinois, Arkansas and Texas.
Photo finish
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The post At the races: Trump the vote appeared first on Roll Call.
