President Trump’s ability to continue achieving his agenda hinges largely on the outcome of congressional midterm elections this November. With the House Majority resting on a razor’s edge, Republicans need to lean into their most popular issue: taking on government fraud.
President Trump’s favorability is strong. As of this writing, he is polling ahead of where Presidents Obama and Bush were at this stage in their presidencies, and ahead of President Biden as he entered the midterm cycle. And the Senate map looks highly unlikely for Republicans to lose control of the upper chamber. But history shows that midterms tend to break against whoever is in power. It is no surprise, then, that Democrats enjoy a slight edge on the generic congressional ballot, albeit a smaller one than they enjoyed in the 2018 midterms.
President Trump has consistently outperformed his opponents on the issues throughout his decade in politics. He has a unique ability to get on the winning side of a political issue and to force his opponents to attack him for it, reinforcing his edge. This has been true from day one, on everything from immigration to voter ID laws to political correctness.
But according to our research, the top issue that will motivate low-propensity Trump voters this fall is Republican efforts to eliminate fraud. According to a December poll conducted by the Center for Excellence in Polling, fully 85 percent of low-propensity Trump voters—people who voted for Trump but who typically sit out elections without him on the ballot—support his efforts to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse. This is a higher number than the strong support that the president retains on other important issues, such as mainstream MAHA policies.
Fraud against the taxpayer is as old as government itself, but until recently, fraud received little attention in the media. Thanks to social media, independent journalists and even ordinary citizens have been able to publicize damning evidence of large-scale fraud in government programs. Social media personalities are forcing traditional media to talk about fraud like never before.
The most prominent example in recent months is in Minnesota, where federal prosecutors allege at least $9 billion in fraud against food aid, Medicaid, and other welfare programs since 2018. Other recent fraud cases in Maine and Massachusetts have also made national headlines. It seems like a new case is coming to light every day.
Fortunately for Republicans, President Trump has made attacking fraud central to his second administration, more so than any president in modern history. On his first day in office, he appointed Elon Musk to head up the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which identified billions of dollars of dubious government spending on everything from empty government buildings to exorbitant media subscriptions to obsolete technology. In July, Republicans took DOGE’s advice and cut $9 billion of waste, fraud, and abuse.
In addition, President Trump’s appointees, like Dr. Mehmet Oz at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, have also hunted down widespread evidence of fraud. Dr. Oz has found nearly three million examples of people illegally receiving Obamacare or Medicaid in multiple states, as well as millions of illegal immigrants receiving Medicaid.
Prosecuting fraud takes a lot of time and manpower. But the good news is that the administration is taking action and laying the groundwork for further action in the future. Earlier this month, Vice President JD Vance announced a new division at the Department of Justice that will focus solely on investigating interstate fraud schemes.
But there is still an Everest to climb. Voters are slowly finding out the scale of fraud against taxpayers is far greater than we had ever imagined. The left-leaning Government Accountability Office (GAO) is aware of at least $162 billion in erroneous payments made by the federal government last year. But GAO itself admits that this massive number does “not represent the full extent of government-wide improper payments” because a dozen government agencies don’t report their losses to waste, fraud, and abuse to the GAO.
If past is prologue, focusing on fraud will also force Democrats to reflexively defend the fraudsters. This has already begun to happen, with Minnesota politicians like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey loudly performing their “resistance” for the camera, only to later admit that fraud “is very real” after all.
Voters are right to be enraged about the widespread theft of our tax dollars, which not only drives up our national debt but also makes everything from groceries to healthcare more expensive for American families. Republicans in Congress are holding hearings, but if they want to win this November, then they will make the midterms laser-focused on Democrats’ apparent cover-up of the rampant theft of our tax dollars. Otherwise, the only winners will be the fraudsters.
Travis N. Taylor, Ph.D., is the Senior Market Research Manager at the Center for Excellence in Polling, a project of the non-profit Foundation for Government Accountability, where he conducts polling and focus groups of voters to make sure their voices are heard in the halls of power.
Editor’s Note: The 2026 Midterms will determine the fate of President Trump’s America First agenda. Republicans must maintain control of both chambers of Congress.
Help Townhall continue to report on the Democrats’ radicalism and inform voters as our nation faces a crossroads. Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member