‘Trump is on the ballot in 2026,’ Johnson says after GOP drubbing

Speaker Mike Johnson connected House Republicans’ fate in next year's midterms to President Donald Trump on Wednesday, just hours after GOP candidates took an election night drubbing from Democrats who centered their campaigns on opposing him.

“President Trump is on the ballot next fall,” Johnson said in his first comments of the off-year election results, delivered at a news conference outside the Capitol on Wednesday. That, he explained, is because Democrats will work to unwind Trump’s agenda and “move to impeach him.”

Johnson's remarks are in part meant to address anxieties among Republicans about the party's lackluster electoral performance when Trump is not a candidate and can't draw voters to GOP candidates down the ballot.

But they also underscore what is certain to be a key Democratic message going into next year: that the midterms are a referendum on Trump, whose approval ratings are currently in the low 40s, according to most recent polls — the lowest of his second term.