The Time Is Now For Republicans To Rally Around Trump

Republicans must stay unified around Trump’s policies or, assuredly, they will all be subpoenaed, show-trialed, and de-personed separately.

Joseph Ford Cotto | November 5, 2026

The midterms, for all their horrors, left the Republican Party bloodied, but that is far from broken.

Statewide contests in Florida followed the modest Republican lean I projected from registered-voter turnout, not dubious polls or vapid commentary. Republicans held the governor’s office, the U.S. Senate seat, and vital state cabinet posts, each by a narrow margin. Democrats, meanwhile, reclaimed both houses of Congress and ended the Republican supermajority in the Florida Legislature.

That outcome matched the registration-and-historical-turnout model I published late last month. I foretold that, in Florida, there would be no Ron DeSantis-style blowout victory, yet no blue wave, either. I saw real Democrat openings only in newly drawn congressional seats and in selected state legislative races. Those results arrived after a bruising cycle.

The temptation now is to treat stomach-churning GOP losses, from sea to shining sea, as proof that the party must move past Donald Trump. That reading is wrong. It dangerously confuses impermanent setbacks with permanent voter rejection.

I collaborated on an exit poll of 450 Republican voters, conducted on Election Day through interactive voice response and weighted to the latest population and voter benchmarks. It revealed that Trump’s second term has made 82 percent of the GOP electorate more supportive of the Republican Party. Sixty-eight percent said a Trump endorsement would guide their 2028 presidential primary vote.

Seventy-one percent said they are likely to vote Republican in 2028, regardless of how the economy performs. Eighty-one percent said they will continue supporting Republicans after the Trump presidency ends. Only 18 percent reported feeling less supportive of the GOP due to Trump’s administration. Just 29 percent said their 2028 vote might hinge on the economy.

The same survey found that 57 percent of Republicans base their Trump support on non-economic issues, leaving only 43 percent who back him for........

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