President Trump showed his party the way by hammering Democrats on illegal immigration and taxes during his State of the Union speech – now fellow Republicans need to do the same to avoid November losses, Trump’s longtime pollster said.
“We can’t win unless we contrast with the Democrats, because Trump’s not going to be on the ballot,” John McLaughlin, who did polling for Trump’s 2016, 2020, and 2024 campaigns, told The Post.
“The Republicans for Congress and Senate, if they think a Trump endorsement is going to deliver their race — it’s not. They need to go on offense with the Democrats, as the president did . . . whether it was deporting criminal legal immigrants, taxes or crime,” he said.
His February poll has 85% support and 12% opposition for deporting known criminal and terrorist migrants who entered the country illegally, an issue that helped propel Trump to the White House in 2024.
But the same nationwide survey of 1,000 people has the Democrats expanding their “generic” lead over the GOP, 47% to 44%, an uptick from their 2% advantage a month ago.
The generic question is considered a key metric for a party’s chances in the race-by-race battle for Congress.
Republicans currently control the Senate 53-47, and lead the House by a tiny 218-214 majority, leaving control of both chambers fragile.
A critical moment in Trump’s nearly two-hour prime time speech Tuesday came when he scolded Democrats for refusing to stand when he said, “The first duty of the American government is to protect American citizens, not illegal aliens.”
“You should be ashamed,” he told them, in a slam GOP operatives are already splicing into campaign ads.
Those are the type of hits McLaughlin says congressional Republicans must replicate while facing historical obstacles of running in an off-year election.
“We have to keep attacking the Democrats on the point that they voted against his Trump tax cuts, and they voted to keep taxing tips, overtime and seniors,” he said. “They booed, in effect, the Trump tax cuts,” said McLaughlin.
Unlike many public polls, the McLaughlin & Associates survey has Trump with narrowly favorable approval rating of 49-48.
Trump was underwater in all but two of the last 14 public polls tabulated in the RealClear Politics average – a flashing warning sign for the GOP.
“He needs to raise his job approval,” he said, noting the State of the Union “will be the first step” in doing so.
Another winning political issue is fraud, McLaughlin counseled – at a time when a $9 billion Minnesota health scam is drawing headlines and is the subject of congressional probes.
His poll asked respondents to identify what percent of all government funding they think is fraud, with most pegging the answer at 9% — an alarming amount.
In November, McLaughlin warned of a “challenging landscape” for Republicans, and pointed to PredictIt betting markets which gave Democrats a 73% chance of controlling both the House and Senate, based in part on 56% of voters saying the country is on the “wrong track.”