Republican midterm triage puts bleak outlook into focus

Republican super PACs are flooding the airwaves in once-safe states, and pulling down ads for races that look like lost causes.

President Trump, his approval ratings near record lows, is popping up in some of America's reddest states.

Why it matters: The polls showing Democrats headed toward a blue wave on Nov.

3 may not be quite right.

But money — and how campaigns and PACs spend it — rarely lies.

Nor do the contrails of Air Force One.

While Republicans are scrambling, Democrats are cutting some spending in contests they think are in the bag, such as North Carolina's Senate race.

No one wants to pay too much for a landslide, just as no one wants to throw good money after bad.

Republicans have been forced to pour well over $100 million into Ken Paxton's Senate race in Texas against Democrat James Talarico, and to plead for millions more to defend Senate seats in Alaska, Iowa and Ohio.

Call it political triage.

Republican operatives are making the kind of hard decisions that would be familiar to any battlefield medic: Save the wounded, and say a prayer for the lost.

Driving the news: Trump was in San Antonio on Wednesday to try to boost Paxton — his second trip in less than a week to Texas, a state he won by 14 points in 2024.

During the past week the president also has campaigned in Oklahoma, Alabama, Ohio and Nebraska.

He's planning another trip to Alabama this weekend for the Georgia-Alabama football game.