What is the Republicans’ single biggest weakness heading into the midterms, and how can it be overcome?

The Republican Party’s biggest weakness is straightforward: We get the majority, then become paralyzed by the fear of losing it.

We run on securing the border, fixing the affordability crisis and restoring law and order. Then we get to Washington and pass the most moderate policies we can get conservatives to accept. Small groups negotiate major legislation behind closed doors, strip out the provisions they promised us and present thousand-page bills as take it or leave it. Meanwhile, the voters who sent us here get betrayed.

I was the first woman to graduate from The Citadel’s Corps of Cadets. I don’t scare easily. But watching my own party squander a governing trifecta is infuriating.

The answer isn’t complicated. Stop the closed-door deals. Let members actually vote on what Americans want by overwhelming margins: border security, banning congressional stock trading and requiring voter ID. These have supermajority support. Give them a vote.

If we don’t pass legislation securing the border permanently, addressing the costs crushing families and restoring order to our communities, we’ll lose this majority. And we’ll have earned it.

Voters don’t reward timidity or broken promises. They reward results. Govern with purpose or get out of the way.

Rep. Nancy Mace is a Republican who represents South Carolina’s 1st Congressional District.

The Republican electoral coalition has more lower-propensity voters than the Democratic coalition. But significant moves on economic prosperity — tax refunds increasing, gas prices falling substantially, groceries at 50% less, rent dropping more than 25%, i.e., the end of unnecessary overpricing — would enhance the chances of a GOP victory by motivating these voters.

Republicans do have history to trifle with, as we know. Since 1946, the party of the president has lost House seats in 18 out of 20 midterm elections. And between 1934 and 2018, the president surrendered, on average, 28 seats in the midterms.

However, Republicans have a cash advantage, and if the economy stabilizes with lower unemployment numbers and increased wages, President Trump could join the ranks of Bill Clinton (1998) and George W. Bush (2002) by adding seats.

In short, maintaining and increasing base enthusiasm and dialing in on retargeting and engaging lower-propensity voters will be key to congressional competitiveness.

Shermichael Singleton is a CNN commentator and Republican strategist.

Recent polling and district-level trends suggest a clear risk for House Republicans in the midterms. This softness is most evident in border/majority-Latino and suburban districts that will ultimately determine control of the U.S. House. While President Trump expanded Republican margins in 2024, short-term voter memory on who is to blame for inflation and ongoing cost pressures has pushed many persuadable voters toward a simple conclusion: Prices remain high. Food, housing and transportation costs have not meaningfully declined relative to wages, and tariff-related headlines reinforce uncertainty. And short-term memories place the blame on the party in power.

Moving forward will require discipline and credibility. Some districts will benefit from high-energy candidates who maximize base participation, while others will require persuasion-focused candidates capable of reassuring swing voters and stabilizing narrow coalitions. But in both cases, Republicans must find ways to clearly distinguish Biden-era inflation from current policy, emphasize lawful and targeted immigration enforcement, and demonstrate tangible results. The Surface Transportation Reauthorization Act is an upcoming chance to demonstrate action on jobs, infrastructure and long-term investment in working communities, while strengthening the 2024 coalition. Republicans would be wise to utilize this opportunity in the days ahead.

Nick Maddux is a partner at Axiom Strategies.

President Trump’s success in securing the border has been one of his most significant achievements. However, recent controversies around high-visibility enforcement have weakened his approval ratings on immigration, even though public support for removing illegal immigrants remained strong as of late last year. The question, then, is not whether to enforce immigration law, but how. Republicans need an enforcement posture that sustains, rather than erodes, public support.

Both the Trump administration and Congress need to focus much more heavily on workplace enforcement. Mass illegal immigration harms American workers by loosening labor markets and rewarding law-breaking firms that undercut law-abiding competitors through cheaper, exploitable illegal labor. When illegal immigrants cannot work in the United States, the economic incentive for unlawful presence collapses. Over time, attrition through workplace enforcement does more to solve the problem than episodic operations alone, while building a more durable, less-controversial role for federal agencies that can be sustained and insulated from the disputes that generate negative media coverage.

Existing law can and should hold employers accountable through high fines, debarment from federal contracts and prosecution of owners and managers in willful or repeat-offender cases. The administration should prioritize worksite enforcement operations that target employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants, making noncompliance genuinely costly. Congress should mandate E-Verify for all employers, with meaningful penalties for violations. These policies would be right for American workers and help Republicans strengthen their standing with voters on immigration.

Daniel Kishi is a senior policy adviser at American Compass.

Counterintuitively, Republicans’ biggest weakness heading into the midterms is their electoral success in 2024, which left them in control of both Congress and the presidency. Public polling has found that voters currently think the nation is “on the wrong track.” There are likely many reasons why people believe this, but none of them support a strong showing for the GOP in the midterms. With total command of the government, Republicans have no one else to blame for the state of the nation, and voters will likely blame them.

Jennifer Mercieca is a professor of communication and journalism at Texas A&M University.

The biggest weakness Republicans face is the biggest weakness any party can have: the challenge of overcoming negative numbers of an unpopular incumbent president. I’ve seen both sides of it. It was exhilarating to ride to victory in 2010 and it was excruciating to deal with in a 2006 Senate campaign loss.

It can be incredibly difficult to articulate your message when your opponents link you to that incumbent president at every turn, in every ad. And it’s all the more challenging this cycle, given how Trump’s constant outrages du jour — the East Wing, the Georgia 2020 election results, Minneapolis, the Kennedy Center, racist posts or whatever may come tomorrow — hinder Republicans from keeping the focus where it needs to be: what they are doing to bring down prices and boost the economy.

Douglas Heye, a GOP strategist and media consultant, has served as communications director of the Republican National Committee and deputy chief of staff to the House majority leader.