By Ginika Igboke
White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles said President Donald Trump plans to campaign frequently ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, signaling a departure from the traditional strategy of keeping presidents at arm’s length from midterm races.
“Typically, in the midterms, it’s not about who’s sitting at the White House. You localize the election, and you keep the federal officials out of it,” Wiles said during an interview with The Mom View uploaded to YouTube on Dec. 8.
Wiles suggested that Republicans face political headwinds when Trump is neither on the ballot nor actively involved in campaigns. “I haven’t quite broken it to him yet,” she said, “but he’s going to campaign like it’s 2024 again.”
Her comments come after Republicans suffered setbacks in recent elections, including gubernatorial losses in New Jersey and Virginia in November. In addition, the GOP candidate in Tennessee’s Seventh Congressional District underperformed Trump during a Dec. 2 special election.
Wiles, who played a key role in managing Trump’s 2024 campaign, said she intends to reverse the usual midterm approach by placing the president front and center.
“We’re actually going to turn that on its head,” she said, “and put him on the ballot because so many of those low-propensity voters are Trump voters.”
Trump has already begun ramping up his domestic political activity. On Dec. 9, he traveled to Pennsylvania to promote his administration’s efforts to reduce the cost of living. The rally took place in a competitive congressional district represented by freshman Rep. Rob Bresnahan (R-Pa.), who won his seat in 2024 by roughly 1.5 percentage points, making him a prime Democratic target. Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti, a Democrat, is seeking her party’s nomination to challenge him.
In a Dec. 9 interview, Trump said affordability remains his top priority. “I inherited a total mess,” he said, arguing that prices were at record highs when he took office and have since declined. “Prices are all coming down. It’s been 10 months. It’s amazing what we’ve done.”
Exit polls from November elections—including the Virginia and New Jersey governor races, the New York City mayoral contest, and a California ballot initiative—showed that economic concerns dominated voter priorities. Trump largely stayed out of those races, instead focusing on foreign policy.
In recent months, the president has traveled extensively overseas, including trips to Egypt and Israel in October to oversee a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas. He also met with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Alaska in August and held talks with Chinese leader Xi Jinping in South Korea later in October.
Domestically, Trump has pointed to policy actions he says are easing financial pressure on consumers, including rolling back auto fuel-efficiency standards and signing agreements aimed at lowering prescription drug prices. He has also continued to press for cuts to the Federal Reserve’s benchmark interest rate, arguing that lower rates would reduce costs for mortgages, auto loans, credit cards, and other consumer expenses.
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