Democrats are trying to win back Congress by criticizing their own party to appeal to voters in more conservative areas

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans are growing increasingly grim about their chances in November, with aligned groups pumping money into reliably GOP states and candidates scrambling to distance themselves from unpopular White House policies.

Health care is shaping up to be a vulnerability for the GOP in the 2026 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to capture the House and Senate.

The party is putting up a costly defense of states and districts that President Trump won easily in 2024. And in places like Georgia, strategists wonder if it’s too late.

Republicans are gathering for a midterm convention in Dallas as Democrats have improved their odds to take over both chambers of Congress.

The Republican Party, or the GOP, currently holds the majority in the US House of Representatives as well as the majority of state legislatures. The Republican leaders are Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell in the Senate and Ohio’s John Boehner in the House.

The bump was driven in part by independent voters. In 2022, 36 percent of independents described Republicans as the more elitist party. This year, that figure was 45 percent. In the latest poll, men were about evenly split on the party they viewed as most elitist, but women chose Republicans by a 20-point margin.

On issues like tariffs, the Iran war, and immigration, reckoning with Trump’s unpopularity could have implications for the GOP’s future.

Time is running out for the Republican Party to convince African American voters to continue to back the GOP without President Donald Trump on the ballot for the November midterm elections. Trump won a larger percentage of African American voters,