Americans' top concern this midterm is the economy– but the GOP is still focusing on culture issues

Yes, and more than that, the facts on the ground, the laws about transgender Americans have changed since the last time Republicans ran on this, since the passions have passed the last time they were competing for Texas, certainly. So in Texas, for example, they are often going after statements he made in Florida dates in 2021-2023. Those laws have passed. There have now been years of families leaving Texas if they have a trans member of their family going to a state like Minnesota or Maine or Oregon. And so the ads are focused on something that for a lot of voters, that is not a problem in their lives four years ago, maybe not. It is not a problem in their... it certainly is not something they are seeing in their daily lives now. This is the case in Iowa, it's a case in Texas and Ohio too, where Democrats knew this attack was coming and conceded some ground on it. Now that did not make activists very happy, not make trans people very happy. They've dealt with criticism from members of their community, especially in Ohio. But there has... this has changed the way the attack hits. Also, it's not 2024 with Trump arguing that Kamala Harris is concerned about quote-unquote they/them and not you, i.e., not the economy. This looks to a lot of people like Republicans swerving away from the economy, swerving away from the top issue to discuss something that was in many voters' minds dealt with in the past. Republicans have been successful at painting Democrats as too extreme. Is that going to work in this environment? I'm looking at Adam Hamilton, the head of a mega church in... I'm looking at James Talerico in Texas. These are not extreme candidates. I don't think so. What they're trying to do is go back to their bread and butter. This does motivate the base and I think it's important to recognize that the base is pissed off with Donald Trump.

No, I don't think so. Not anymore because of Epstein and especially because of the Iran war and now because of the economy. They're all pushing. I think he has to try to shore up that base and go back to his bread and butter and what's generally worked in the past. But the key here is always independence, right? 45% of this country hasn't voted in most of the primaries. They want to come out. They want to speak. They're pissed off about all the same things and Trump's not getting them, especially in a place like Texas on a day where Matthew McConaughey issued a message to the world about the power of independence. Imagine if Matthew McConaughey was on the ticket. He'd probably beat them all. But in the meantime, he's motivating that unspoken majority that's going to speak out in the next couple weeks and Trump continues to lose. Charles?

I think that's absolutely right. When you're talking about this voter base, the folks who are with Trump have been with him and these rallies and seeing them excited in terms of the vitriol that he's doing and appealing to some of the lowest bases nature of that base is fine, but they still have to get in their cars and drive home. When they look at the pump, when they look at gas prices, when they're thinking about how am I going to do this and provide for my family, all of the culture... I think this is going to be a very interesting moment.