ATLANTA (AP) — Republicans once saw Georgia and North Carolina as promising pieces of their strategy to keep control of the Senate. But hopes of winning the two states have been fading, and the GOP is increasingly focused on playing defense elsewhere with five weeks until the midterm elections.
Republicans haven't abandoned the Southern battlegrounds, which President Donald Trump carried narrowly in 2024, though they are shifting greater resources to states they see as more competitive. The party now is spending heavily to defend reliably Republican Texas, and Trump is planning to campaign for the Republican incumbent in Ohio, both places the president won easily in 2024.
Some Republicans also have become more vocal in their complaining that Trump has squandered an opportunity to more comfortably hold off Democrats this fall. Among their grievances, they say the president failed to bring the unpopular war in Iran to a close, has dismissed the pinch of high fuel prices and engaged late in the midterm campaigns.
And though Democrats must still win several seats Republicans hold to win back the majority, the GOP is looking more at protecting seats they already hold than picking up Georgia, and they are signaling serious problems in North Carolina.
“There is a Republican turnout problem due to the administration's failure to address the economic concerns of voters,” North Carolina Republican strategist Paul Shoemaker said of the state's U.S. Senate race.
Republican Senate campaign leaders are looking past Georgia businessman Mike Collins' challenge of first-term Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff to states they viewed as more competitive to focus future spending, according to two Republican Senate campaign sources familiar with Senate leadership's thinking. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity to share internal discussions.
Ossoff has swamped the successful trucking company executive in fundraising. Collins has also struggled to broaden his support beyond Georgia's Republican base.
Despite Senate Majority Leader John Thune's two-day campaign and fundraising trip to Georgia this month, some local party leaders were publicly pessimistic.
"He just doesn’t have what it takes to beat Ossoff,” said Tim Waters, Peach County Republican Party chair. “It’s hard enough trying to beat an incumbent, and you have the president of the same party in a tough midterm, right? I don’t think he’s got much of a shot.”
Republicans had viewed Georgia early in the 2026 campaign as a potential firewall, should Democrats win in a critical number of states where Republican seats are on the ballot. Democrats must win a net of four seats to win back the majority.
But Ossoff has already spent $57 million in advertising and had $13 million reserved through the election, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. And while outside groups aligned with Collins had spent more than $52 million, AdImpact shows, Collins' campaign confirmed it had no advertising time immediately reserved.
Retiring Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis stopped short of suggesting GOP candidate Michael Whatley's chances of holding the seat for the party had vanished, but implied it was time to take a hard look at how long to continue spending heavily against Democratic former two-term Gov. Roy Cooper.
“We've got to place our bets on the candidates that are the best run, either ahead or within striking distance,” Tillis told reporters Monday in the Capitol. “You've got to change your posture going into the last — we've got 36 days.”
Whatley, a former Republican National Committee chairman, has been a darling of Trump, who campaigned for him this month. But enthusiasm for Trump seems to have fallen even with a number of Republicans who voted for him, said Shoemaker, a Tillis adviser. Trump narrowly won North Carolina in 2024.
“The blue-collar, working-class voters that Donald Trump brought to the Republican Party is the one that's being most impacted by higher energy prices, and it's dampened their enthusiasm to turn out and vote,” Shoemaker said.
Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP's leadership super PAC, had $19.5 million in advertising booked in North Carolina, having spent $30.4 million to date.
“Do I think Roy Cooper is going to win the race? I absolutely do,” said Michele Woodhouse, former Republican chair for North Carolina's 11th Congressional District and a devout Trump supporter.
“Roy Cooper, for Republicans, is the worst Democrat candidate who could be running for this seat," Woodhouse said. “He’s never lost in a statewide race. He’s very popular.”
In Texas, where Democrats have not won a Senate election since 1988, Republicans' Senate Leadership Fund is spending more than it is in any of the states it set out to defend early in the year. The group this month pumped more than $100 million into advertising in Texas to back up state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who faces Democratic state Rep. James Talarico in a race viewed as very competitive.
Trump endorsed Paxton over four-term incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn in the GOP primary. GOP campaign leaders considered Paxton a potential drain on Republican resources because he has for years faced legal, ethical and personal questions. They include a felony indictment, impeachment charges and extramarital affairs, though Paxton was never convicted.
Senate GOP leaders had suggested Trump's super PAC, MAGA Inc., would carry a good portion of the advertising load after Paxton beat Cornyn in the May GOP Senate runoff. Neither the National Republican Senatorial Committee nor SLF had included spending on Texas in its midterm budget.
As of Monday, MAGA Inc., has committed more than $20 million to ads supporting Paxton so far this month, compared with the $124 million from SLF.
Should Democrats win North Carolina and Texas, they would only need to win two of the remaining competitive Republican-held seats — in Alaska, Iowa, Maine and Ohio — as well as hold competitive Democratic-held seats in Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire to capture the majority.
Trump plans to visit Ohio on Saturday to support Sen. Jon Husted as the Republican tries to fend off a competitive challenge from Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown. The president plans to campaign with Husted in Vandalia, near Dayton in southwest Ohio.
Senate Republican campaign leaders have complained that spiking gas prices, a result of the seven-month-long war with Iran, are among the issues weighing against candidates that Trump has exacerbated.
Campaigning with Whatley last week, Trump called higher fuel prices “a very inexpensive price to pay” for preventing Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon. Though gas prices are near historic highs, they are still below the nationwide record set in 2022.
It's prompted some candidates, such as Iowa's GOP Senate nominee, Rep. Ashley Hinson, to speak out.
“Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn't have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran,” she said last week.
South Dakota Sen. Mike Rounds dismissed that the Republican majority was slipping away, but suggested senators needed to act on fuel prices.
“We have to stay focused on the fact that we know that gas prices are too high, and diesel is way too high," the Republican said.
Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa and Sloan from Washington. AP reporter Sarah Rankin in Richmond, Virginia, contributed to this report.
President Donald Trump listens as North Carolina Republican U.S. Senate candidate Michael Whatley speaks during a rally at Gastonia Municipal Airport, Wednesday, Sept. 16, 2026, in Gastonia, N.C. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
