It’s not lost on Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters that the party in the White House almost always loses Congressional seats in the Midterms. That’s why he thought, why not risk trying something new with this year’s unprecedented Midterm Convention (aka: “Trumpapalooza"). "If you're going to defy history, you can't do what they've always done in the past,” Gruters told Newsweek.
Everything is about getting out the vote, and this is the start of that effort, and what you're going to see over the next 60 days is probably one of the biggest grassroots efforts that the party's ever seen.” The logic isn’t without evidence. Since President Donald Trump shook up politics with his 2016 presidential election win, Republicans have underperformed in the years his name isn’t on the ballot. But in past elections, swing-state Republicans didn’t necessarily embrace the president the way they do now.
During Trump’s first term, the GOP old guard still had a solid grip on power. Former Senate Leader Mitch McConnell was still in leadership, and Romney family scion Ronna McDaniel ran the RNC. Many conservative activists saw the president as being more aligned with grassroots than Republican leadership.
When Trump won the primary in 2024, he handed MAGA ally Michael Whatley the RNC reins, and he, in turn, handed them to Gruters in August 2025. Gruters, a former member of the Florida House of Representatives, rose to prominence as chair of the Florida Republican Party in 2019 before becoming Treasurer of the RNC in 2025. He’s a party man through and through, and to him, the modern Republican Party is the same as Trump's Make America Great Again movement.
Polling from UMass Amherst—which surveyed 1,000 respondents from August 21 to 26, 2026—shows that roughly one in six Republicans are turning away from Trump. To Gruters, combating that trend and equipping MAGA to prosper in the 2026 midterms and the era that’s to follow means ensuring the state parties and the president work hand in hand. And we can be successful.
We can get the entire party working together, rowing the same direction, and so that's been my goal with State Party Strategies.” According to the RNC, its State Party Strategies (SPS) program functions to bridge the gap between national leadership and the states. Through the program, the RNC offers aid ranging from political strategy and communications to data, finance, training, and election monitoring support. Over the last year, the RNC said SPS has conducted over 300 trainings with 53 different state and territory parties.
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