CNN
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President Donald Trump and GOP leaders are beginning to plot their midterm push to hang on to power amid a shaky political environment, courting key candidates in critical battleground House and Senate races while leaning hard on an issue that could animate the MAGA faithful: impeachment.
Even though Democratic leaders are wary of a third impeachment vote, the topic has become a prominent discussion in GOP ranks, with Trump eager to avoid another all-consuming showdown with an emboldened Democratic majority and Republican leaders banking the talk could help drive up turnout in an election where Trump won’t be at the top of the ticket.
“It is a key priority of his, obviously, to keep the House majority, because he knows what would happen if we didn’t,” Speaker Mike Johnson told CNN after meeting with Trump last week to discuss the midterms. “Democrats have already said they’re gonna try another baseless impeachment. They’ll do their best to grind the agenda to a halt.”
Midterm elections historically are painful for parties in power. And Democrats believe Trump’s sagging poll numbers and voter fears of an economic recession amid his trade war will be enough to win the narrowly divided House and give them a shot at the Senate majority, though the map is much tougher to flip that chamber.
But Trump is already showing intense personal interest in trying to buck the trend, Republican leaders say. In recent days, Trump has met privately with GOP leaders, including Johnson, to discuss candidate strategy and ways the White House can help in key races. Trump is signaling he will be fully engaged in the midterms, already planning more rounds of endorsements and offering to help in other ways, such as fundraisers and rallies, wherever he is needed, three GOP strategists said.
And in the Senate, GOP leaders have been on an all-hands-on-deck push to woo perhaps their biggest recruit of the 2026 cycle: Gov. Brian Kemp in Georgia.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune, along with Sen. Tim Scott, who leads the Senate GOP campaign arm, flew down to Atlanta over the Easter recess to discuss a potential run with Kemp and his wife, Marty. And the Georgia governor has sounded out senators for their advice, including Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts, a former governor himself, and Sen. Steve Daines, who used to run the Senate GOP campaign arm.
And perhaps most importantly, Trump has spoken to Kemp about a potential Senate run — in February — when the nation’s governors were meeting in Washington, according to a source briefed on the conversation. While Trump made no commitments to Kemp, the fact that the president spoke with him has been viewed positively in GOP circles given that Trump lambasted the governor for years after Kemp refused to overturn the president’s 2020 election loss in Georgia.
“It’s a very personal decision, but we’re going to give him every reason to run,” Thune told CNN, noting that Kemp was looking “over his options” and consulting with his family. “We’re all in.”
In multiple instances, Trump and his team have signaled they want to put up the best candidates — not simply the biggest MAGA acolytes — in a critical show of cooperation for a party that has been hobbled by ugly infighting over candidates in recent years, including between Trump and the party establishment in the 2022 midterms, according to multiple GOP strategists briefed on recent discussions.
“They’re focusing on winning and finding the candidates that can win, period,” one GOP strategist said of the White House’s strategy.
Even as Democrats believe Trump will be a huge liability for Republicans in the midterms, GOP leaders say they plan to fully embrace him — despite his polarizing politics — in a gamble to avoid their 2018 wipeout. One factor in their favor: Republicans are facing one of the narrowest House battlefields in recent memory, with roughly a dozen seats likely to determine the majority — with three Republicans holding seats in districts Kamala Harris won in 2024 compared with 13 Democrats in districts Trump carried.
Even with some anxious about cratering poll numbers and ramifications of the trade war, many Republicans insist they can maintain control of Washington if they can successfully turn out Trump’s base.
“President Trump’s gonna be crucial for us in keeping the House,” said Rep. Richard Hudson, the House GOP campaign chief, who met with Trump and his political team last week. “It’s gonna be critical for us to turn out that Trump coalition in the next election.”
Asked whether swing-district Republicans should campaign with Trump next year, Hudson said: “Absolutely.”
Yet some swing-district Republicans are uncertain whether Trump will be helpful to their cause.
“It’s always hard in a midterm year,” said Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska, one of the three Republicans in a district Harris carried.
But Bacon also revealed he’s weighing retirement, a decision he’ll make over the summer that will have big ramifications for a hotly contested seat pivotal for House control.
“I have a chance maybe for a third life,” Bacon said. “So just praying on it.”
Kemp, the term-limited governor, has been torn about a possible run for Senate. He has, nonetheless, been the subject of a concerted lobbying push from the many Senate Republicans who believe that Georgia — and specifically, Kemp — hold the key to their midterm map.
If Kemp were to run, top Republicans believe it would give them their best shot at taking down first-term Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff — and make it nearly impossible for Democrats to flip the Senate, which stands at a 53-47 GOP advantage.
Daines, the former Senate GOP campaign chief who is close to Trump, recently spent 30 minutes on the phone with Kemp. Daines said the two spoke extensively about life in the Senate.
“He showed great interest [in] what the Senate is about, what it’s like, what you do here as a senator, and I tried to give him as much of my own experience from the inside, so that he has as much information as possible to make a decision,” Daines said of the phone call with Kemp.
Ricketts, the former Nebraska governor-turned-senator, hosted Kemp and other GOP governors for dinner at his townhouse earlier this year, in addition to multiple personal calls on the subject of running for Senate, according to a person familiar with the outreach.
It was during that same governors’ trip to Washington that Trump spoke to Kemp, the first source said. That same night, the president also offered effusive praise for the governor in his public remarks, calling him “fantastic” and thanking him for helping him win Georgia in 2024. “We did a great job together, and I appreciate it. We won’t forget it,” Trump said at the time.
That Georgia seat is seen as one of the GOP’s top pickup opportunities, alongside the open seats in Michigan and New Hampshire. The GOP is also on defense in two potentially difficult races in both Maine and North Carolina, while facing a bitter intraparty primary in Texas that could cost party resources and give Democrats an opening.
Meanwhile, other Republicans are considering a run. Rep. Buddy Carter, who has represented a Savannah-area district for the past decade, has said he would look at the seat if Kemp does not run.
And Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the hard-right firebrand and staunch Trump ally, did not rule out a run, when asked by CNN.
“I’ve got a lot of options open to me. There’s the governor’s race, there’s the Senate race, and then there’s my district, which I love,” Greene said, referring to her northwest Georgia district. Asked about Kemp as a possible candidate, she said: “I’ve always been a strong supporter of our governor.”
But Greene also offered a word of warning to Republicans as they plot their midterm strategy, saying talk of impeachment won’t be good enough to win if they don’t pass Trump’s agenda in Congress and deliver on what their voters are demanding.
“If the Republican campaign message in the midterms is to vote for House Republicans and vote for Republican candidates for Senate to stop the Democrats from impeaching Trump, the American people are not going to care because they’ve seen that show twice, and it didn’t matter,” Greene said. “It won’t work.”
Back home in Georgia late last month, Ossoff caused a stir in Washington when he told a town hall audience that Trump has “already exceeded any prior standard for impeachment.” Within an hour of those comments Friday night, three separate GOP campaign groups had unleashed attacks on Ossoff.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has said little about whether he would push to impeach Trump a third time if his party can flip the House next year, despite being pressed about articles of impeachment recently filed by from one of his members, Rep. Shri Thanedar. The topic has not come up in private leadership or caucus meetings this year, multiple Democrats said, though Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive firebrand, told CNN last week that impeachment “should absolutely be on the table” if Democrats take the House.
But inside party leadership, there is no appetite to undertake that push, those Democrats said.
“This is not an exercise that we’re willing to undertake,” Rep. Pete Aguilar, the No. 3 House Democrat, told reporters last week.
“That’s just dumb,” Sen. John Fetterman, a Pennsylvania Democrat, said of the impeachment talk. “That’s not going anywhere.”
Asked about his town hall comments, Ossoff said he stood by them but demurred when asked whether Democrats should pursue impeachment if the party retakes the House next year.
“As I said last week, that kind of misconduct, I think, exceeds virtually any prior standard for that kind of inquiry in the House,” Ossoff told CNN, saying Trump is enriching himself through a cryptocurrency venture. “I can’t predict what a future House will do.”
Asked whether he is concerned that Republicans will now weaponize his impeachment comments into his 2026 race, Ossoff replied: “I stand by those comments 100% and I think that the GOP should be concerned that the incumbent president appears to be selling access.”
As for a potential Kemp run, Ossoff seemed undeterred.
“I am ready for any challenger,” the 38-year-old Democrat told CNN. “The pool is open. We’ll see who runs and I’m prepared.”
CNN’s Casey Riddle, Ali Main and Ileya Robinson-Williams contributed to this report.
