Control of Congress will be decided over the next seven weeks. Starting this month, The Daily Signal is introducing a new show — “Midterm Report” — all about the 2026 elections. The debut episode covers the first Republican National Committee Midterm Convention, held last week in Dallas, and features two guests who arrived at the same uncomfortable conclusion: Republicans need better messaging heading into November.

The GOP’s Enthusiasm Gap

Pollster Brent Buchanan, founder and CEO of Cygnal, opened with a finding that should worry every Republican candidate. “It’s important to realize that the Republican coalition is two coalitions,” Buchanan said. “You have Trump Republicans who identify with the president, and then you have traditional Republicans who more so identify with the party’s values and the Republican brand itself.”

In Cygnal’s data, roughly 45% of Republicans identify as Trump Republicans. A majority call themselves traditional Republicans. That distinction matters because the two groups are not showing up at the same rate. Buchanan said his polling found 77% of Trump Republicans are excited about the election, compared with 51% of traditional Republicans.

“That’s a 26-point gap within the party,” he explained.

Those voters want to hear how the GOP is addressing affordability, Buchanan said. He cited the high cost of health insurance, auto and homeowners insurance, property taxes, and gas prices, and noted that his own company is absorbing a 12.6% increase in health coverage this year. “They’re just getting pounded from every angle,” he acknowledged.

On the president’s proposed $5,000 dividend, he was blunt about why it may not land: “Americans are actually focused on the money going out the door, not the money coming in the door.”

An Opportunity for Republicans

Buchanan also shared Cygnal’s new polling data on socialism. Among the roughly one-third of Americans who say socialism is an acceptable economic or political identity, 61% cannot name what socialism actually entails, according to his data. Most describe it as an expanded welfare state or a right to housing and health care rather than government ownership of industry.

“The label alone is not going to carry the weight,” Buchanan said. “You have to define the horrible things of socialism.”

He pointed to Michigan’s 7th District, where Rep. Tom Barrett (R) faces a self-described socialist, as a test case. Running on the word won’t work, Buchanan argued. Running on what the candidate has actually said — open the borders, defund the police — will.

“We don’t have to persuade independents to win this election,” he insisted. “We just have to get our people back off the sidelines and in the game. And when I say ‘our people,’ I mean traditional Republicans, not Trump Republicans.”

Victor Davis Hanson: ‘They’re Not Getting the Message Out’

Victor Davis Hanson joined me in the second half of the show to discuss his new book, “The Counterrevolution: The Fall and Rise of Donald Trump and the MAGA Movement.” Not surprisingly, the renowned historian offered a history lesson. In 39 of the last 41 midterm elections, Hanson noted, the party in power loses ground.

He argued the current polling numbers reflect a failure to communicate rather than a failure to govern. Inflation averaged 5.2% during the Biden administration, Hanson underscored, and is substantially lower now. Voters are angry anyway, because they expected the cumulative price increases of the last four years to reverse, and no one told them that wasn’t possible.

He made a similar argument about Iran, where critics on both ends of the ideological spectrum are attacking the administration.

“We lost 17 people, not 7,000 in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’ve spent $70 billion, not $4 trillion. And this has been six months, not 20 years,” he said. “But I don’t hear anybody saying that.”

He pointed to other issues: deregulation, record foreign investment, energy production, a border that has been closed, the lowest crime rate in decades, and the latest jobs report.

“It’s a pretty good message,” Hanson emphasized, “except for inflation at about 4% and the price of gas and especially diesel fuel. But they’re not getting the message out.”

His forecast is sober. Hanson put the House at a 70-30 proposition against Republicans and called the Senate a coin flip. He sees two things that could move those odds: relentless communication of what the administration has accomplished and drawing a sharp contrast with the socialist turn of Democrats.

“A lot of things [Trump] did were long-term investments,” Hanson said, “but they weren’t ever communicated.”

Rob Bluey is president and executive editor of the Daily Signal.

This article was originally published in The Daily Signal.