Last week, President Trump celebrated his grip over the Republican Party.
“Look at what happened last night,” Mr. Trump boasted at a cabinet meeting on Wednesday, after yet another MAGA-aligned candidate he had endorsed walloped an establishment Republican, this time in the Texas primary. “That was the prelude to the midterms.”
But it’s far from clear that Mr. Trump’s winning streak in the Republican primaries will translate into victory in November, when the party will need the support of voters outside of Mr. Trump’s base — many of whom are deeply dissatisfied with the economy and the Iran war.
Already, there are signs that his hold over Republicans in Washington may be slipping.
In a rare show of dissent, Senate Republicans earlier this month blocked Mr. Trump on money for his White House ballroom and pushed back on a $1.8 billion fund to reward Trump supporters who claim political persecution by Democrats. The opposition was so intense that the White House has considered scrapping it.
Mr. Trump has also been blocked by the courts: a federal judge on Friday temporarily barred Mr. Trump from setting up the fund for his supporters, and another court ordered him to remove his name from the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The Kennedy Center ruling prompted an incensed president to consider backing down — something he never likes to be seen doing.
“We are going to be working with Congress to transfer this failing Institution back to them so they can make a determination as to what to do with it,” Mr. Trump said as he complained that there had “never been a President of the United States who has been treated so unfairly by the Courts as I.”
In a matter of days, Mr. Trump had gone from dominant in the primary races to facing enormous pushback by Republican elected officials in Washington and the courts.
The split-screen illustrates an emerging paradox of the Trump presidency: He has an iron grip on his most loyal supporters, even as his overall popularity slips.
“The challenge of the administration right now,” said Douglas Heye, a former communications director for the Republican National Committee, “is the issues that they bring up, that Trump brings up, are not where voters are. They don’t need a ballroom, they don’t need a weaponization fund, they need lettuce to be affordable.”
According to a Quinnipiac poll published last week, some 73 percent of Republican voters still widely approve of the job Mr. Trump is doing. But Mr. Trump’s overall approval rating has hit a second-term low as gas prices and the economic concerns of Americans remain high.
Most voters think Mr. Trump made the wrong decision to go to war with Iran, a New York Times/Siena poll found, deepening concerns among the Republican establishment about the party’s near-term future.
Olivia Wales, a spokeswoman for the White House, said Mr. Trump “is the unquestioned leader of the Republican Party.”
“His endorsement is the most powerful endorsement in the history of American politics — look no further than his perfect record in the past year for proof,” Ms. Wales said. “President Trump is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress to continue delivering wins for the American people.”
Despite the White House committing repeatedly this year to have Mr. Trump fan out across the country and focus on addressing the economic concerns of Americans, he has appeared more interested in talking about his construction projects and retribution against his political enemies.
Mr. Trump has made clear that he is not concerned about the economic or political fallout of the war in Iran. When it comes to Iran, he said he does not think about the economic hardship of Americans — “not even a little bit” — and that he does not care about the midterms
While those economic concerns have not yet hurt Mr. Trump’s standing in the low-turnout Republican primaries, it could be a factor in a general election in November.
In some cases, Mr. Trump’s success on the campaign trail has fueled the pushback he is facing in Washington.
Mr. Trump notched another win last week when another ally beat Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who voted to convict Mr. Trump in his impeachment trial after the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Mr. Cassidy days later provided a vote to advance a resolution to end the war in Iran. Mr. Cassidy joined other Republicans in pushing back against Mr. Trump’s fund to reward his allies, as well as additional funding for his ballroom.
And after Mr. Trump turned on Senator John Cornyn of Texas — helping pave the way for Ken Paxton’s win — Mr. Cornyn signaled his disappointment by sharing a post about the fable of the frog and the scorpion crossing a river. In the tale, the scorpion stings the frog, dooming them both to drown.
“The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: ‘I am sorry, but I couldn’t help myself,” Mr. Cornyn wrote. “It’s my character.’”
Some former Republican members of Congress have referred to the growing number in their ranks leaving office and increasingly willing to criticize Mr. Trump as “the new freedom caucus” or the “YOLO caucus.”
Patrick McHenry, the former Republican congressman of North Carolina, said in an interview that the Republicans were now “relying on retirees, that have no political incentive to be a part of the team, to be on the team.”
But while loyalty to Mr. Trump in Washington may be fading, Republicans are cleareyed that Mr. Trump’s endorsement remains one of the more powerful weapons in politics — in large part because of his ironclad hold over the more passionate voters in the MAGA movement more likely to participate in the primaries.
“The long-term thinkers on Capitol Hill are thinking about where you are in two, four, six years, not just the next six months and what they would tell you is that President Trump is a part of that calculus,” Mr. McHenry, the former interim speaker of the House, said in an interview.
“There’s a way to leadership within the Republican Party with his blessing or without his opposition,” Mr. McHenry said. “But not with his opposition.”
