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. “This is a turnout election. 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.
“[The President] has completely transformed what the party is, and the base is 100 percent, I think, united behind them, and the party leadership is united behind him,” Gruters told Newsweek. “We have the largest network that exists in politics, and sometimes it's as simple as making sure they're pointed in the right direction and focused on the right thing. And we can be successful. We can be united. 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.
A “central component” of SPS’s work is its Growing Republican Organizations to Win (GROW) Program, aimed at bolstering state party operations, according to the RNC.
The RNC said the program consists of three levels: On the Rise, Leaders’ Circle, and Chairman’s Circle. As states advance in levels, they receive incentives and resources they can deploy to continue strengthening their parties. In the 2025–2026 cycle, 55 states entered the program, 45 completed all three levels, and state parties received more than $2.5 million in incentives, per the RNC said.
In contrast, the Democratic National Committee under Chair Ken Martin has prioritized sending $1 million each month to bolster year-round state party organizing infrastructure. That has resulted in a balance sheet of $16 million in cash on hand and $17.9 million in debt, whilst the RNC has amassed a $130.4 million war chest heading into the midterms, according to FEC filings.
Martin told Newsweek in a prior interview that to win big this November, he believes Democrats must invest steadily and focus on results over cash on hand. “We've raised about $100 million dollars more than \includegraphics[width=0.15\linewidth]{GettyImages-2294381332.jpg}2017-2021 DNC Chair] Tom Perez did at this point, and he was the last record holder \includegraphics[width=0.15\linewidth]{GettyImages-2294382063.jpg}for a DNC without the White House\includegraphics[width=0.15\linewidth]{GettyImages-2294381332.jpg}, so we're raising it, and we're also spending it,” Martin said.
Nonetheless, Gruters feels his cash advantage will factor big into the results this November, especially if the RNC Midterm Convention goes as planned and the MAGA base is energized. State party chairs like Alex Triantafilou will be tasked with channeling that energy.
Triantafilou, chairman of the Ohio Republican Party, was one of a half dozen party chairs Newsweek spoke to who characterized Gruters as a grassroots-focused leader, a focus he shares as head of the RNC Grassroots Engagement Committee. Triantafilou said Gruters understands the pressures to fundraise and keep factions within the state united and maintains on top of those concerns maintains by speaking regularly with him via phone. In turn, Gruters said he’s in “constant communication” with the president.
“The president is very popular with the grassroots, but he has a country to run, so he’s not talking day to day about the grassroots, but Joe Gruters does,” Triantafilou told Newsweek. “He thinks a lot about our grassroots and that's been a big issue for us and something I think a lot of us have felt as a welcome message from the chairman.”
Triantafilou said Trump “will forever be beloved by our grassroots,” so ensuring State Party operations reflect that is a priority. Over the past decade, Trump has often played kingmaker in Republican Primaries, frequently vanquishing GOP candidates on account of his devotion from the MAGA base. Part of Gruters' work focuses on ensuring state parties maintain alignment with those voters.
Rick Wilson, a founder of the Lincoln Project and a former Florida GOP strategist, however, believes the current iteration of the RNC represents less of a political party and more of a fiefdom designed to uphold the power of one man. Wilson criticized today's party as ideologically incoherent and hit Republicans for sacrificing their values for the sake of appeasing Trump and his fervent supporters, who may be involved with grassroots organizations but are out of step with rank-and-file Republicans. As for Gruters, Wilson sees him as someone who's benefited from a system already in place rather than as a grassroots innovator.
“The party as it exists today is just branding,” Wilson told Newsweek. “The Republican Party of the past is completely gone, and they call it the Republican Party, but it’s Trump’s party, and his loyalists control the money \includegraphics[width=0.15\linewidth]{GettyImages-2294381332.jpg}via MAGA Inc.\includegraphics[width=0.15\linewidth]{GettyImages-2294382063.jpg}, guys like Chris LaCavita, Tony Fabrizio, James Blair, and a few others.”
Gruters dismissed the idea that the power rests in MAGA Inc. at the expense of the RNC. He noted that Vice President JD Vance serves as RNC Finance Chairman and has played an active role in promoting the party. “It’s a combined effort,” Gruters said. “\includegraphics[width=0.15\linewidth]{GettyImages-2294381332.jpg}Trump is\includegraphics[width=0.15\linewidth]{GettyImages-2294382063.jpg} going to spend that money because he knows what's at stake. I've talked to him at dinner with him last week; we're talking strategy—We're talking now. We're in constant communication with his team.”
Gruters' relationship with Trump stems in part from his prior experience in Florida, the president's current home state. It’s there where Gruters built a record that other chairs have come to admire. Evan Power, the current Republican Party of Florida Chairman, said that when Gruters and Governor Ron DeSantis took on their roles in 2019, Florida was not a firmly red state. Democrats outnumbered Republicans 4,986,520 to 4,761,405. But when Gruters left in 2023, Republicans led 5,141,848 to 4,362,147.
“He took that Florida energy and knows that he needs to invest in state parties the same way we've invested in county parties as a state party,” Power told Newsweek. “I'm excited to see the benefits that that will play out in sort of these states that have been competitive for years.”
Other party chairs told Newsweek that Gruters continues to visit their states to support party-building efforts. While the president may face an approval rating in the high thirties, Gruters believes that core Republicans continue to support him and the agenda he’s advanced. He believes these voters will ultimately win elections and drive the party into the future. If some segments of the party don’t like that, then perhaps the RNC under Gruters has left them behind.
“I exist to push the president and make sure he's successful, make sure that his administration's successful,” Gruters said. “There's zero daylight between me and the president, and the entire party exists to help him be successful.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Jason Lemon and Gray R. Thomas
