GOP strategist Karl Rove said Republicans need to have a health care agenda ahead of the midterm elections or they’ll be in “deep trouble” with their voters.
In an interview Saturday on Fox News’s “Journal Editorial Report,” Rove said Republicans need to have a health care plan to share with voters next year, along with a clear economic message that addresses constituents’ concerns.
“If the Republicans want to maximize their victories in 2026, they need to go back in the way-back machine to 1992 and remember the immortal words of that great strategist, James Carville. ‘It’s the economy stupid,’ he said,” Rove said in the interview. “And you got to have an agenda that is forward-looking.”
Rove encouraged GOP candidates to think about “progrowth policies” that will directly benefit American families and their financial prospects.
“And ‘don’t forget health care,’ Carville famously said,” Rove added. “The Republicans have got to have a health care agenda, otherwise they’re going to be in deep trouble.”
Health care was at the center of a record-long government shutdown, during which Democrats insisted on extending health care subsidies before voting to reopen the government. Enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies expire at the end of the year and are expected to hike insurance premiums for millions of Americans.
The issue has caused rifts in the Republican Party, as many GOP constituents are slated to be directly affected by the expiring subsidies.
Rove, in the interview, said cracks are emerging within the Republican Party because members are “scared to death of the midterm election,” given that the public doesn’t yet feel the benefit of President Trump’s agenda-defining tax and spending bill passed earlier this year, according to Rove.
“If the president’s ‘big, beautiful bill’ was as instantaneously positive as he thinks, his approval numbers on the economy wouldn’t be in the 30s, and his overall approval wouldn’t be in the low 40s,” Rove said.
“So Republicans are concerned, and they need to have an agenda going into the 2026 midterms, and they don’t have a forward-looking agenda at this moment,” he continued.
