I. Introduction / Housekeeping
Before we get into this week's memo, I want to encourage everyone to use the Office Hours channel on the Discord server to ask your questions. I'm in there every weekday — and even some weekend mornings when I wake up before my children. The community is currently of a manageable enough size that I don't think we need a more formal process yet.
If you're not on the Discord server, I highly recommend it. There's a great, growing community sharing best practices and getting feedback and advice from me. If you don't know how to access the server, this guide should help.
This week's strategy memo covers the Republican strategy for the midterms — what it will be, and how to prepare for it.
Many members of the Message Box Pro community are running in or working on downballot and local races, so the GOP's national message may seem disconnected from your campaign. In the past, it might have been. But politics has been nationalized, and any effort to define and (further) degrade the Democratic brand affects every Democrat in every race.
II. The GOP Strategy
After Democrats romped in the 2025 elections, Republicans declared that their strategy for the midterms would be focused on affordability. White House Deputy Chief of Staff James Blair, Trump's de facto political hand, told Politico:
"The president is very keyed into what's going on, and he recognizes, like anybody, that it takes time to do an economic turnaround, but all the fundamentals are there, and I think you'll see him be very, very focused on prices and cost of living." — James Blair, White House Deputy Chief of Staff
Trump was supposed to go on an "Affordability Tour" where he barnstormed the nation talking about the tax cuts in the Big Beautiful Bill and other (pretty fake) administration measures to lower costs. Of course, his pivot to an affordability message was an abject failure even before he launched his disastrous war in the Middle East. He can't bring himself to admit prices are up, because doing so would mean admitting he failed to keep his core campaign promise. He gets visibly angry at the mere idea of affordability. He's called it bullshit and immediately tells everyone how high the stock market is and how things have never been better.
This graph from Nate Silver shows just how poorly that strategy has worked.
The Republicans have lost on affordability. With gas prices rising and unlikely to fall significantly before the midterms, it's hard to see what they could say or do that would change the dynamic.
So they are pivoting once again to a new midterm strategy. Here's how Politico Playbook described it last week:
But there's a simpler framing the White House and allies are falling in behind: Democrats are worse.
"The Democrats are woke, weak, and way too liberal," a Republican close to the White House told Playbook. "We'll make sure every voter in America remembers that."
This person denied the White House was searching for a message.
"Contrast is necessary," they said. "The Democrats aren't popular. They have no vision or agenda. We have to highlight that. And it will be contrasted with things we have accomplished, and things we are aiming to still accomplish and need a Republican majority for."
In other words, the GOP plans to use its massive financial advantage in this election to nuke the Democrats and make them an unacceptable alternative.
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