GOP Doubts In Georgia & North Carolina Shifts Focus

ATLANTA (AP) — Republican hopes of winning Senate races in Georgia and North Carolina have been fading, and the GOP is increasingly focused on playing defense elsewhere with five weeks until the midterm elections. Republicans haven’t abandoned the Southern battlegrounds, which President Donald Trump carried narrowly in 2024, though they are shifting greater resources to states they see as more competitive. The party now is spending heavily to defend GOP-heavy Texas, and Trump is planning to campaign for the Republican incumbent in Ohio, both places the president won easily in 2024. The shift comes as Republicans are becoming more vocal in their public criticism that Trump has squandered an opportunity to more comfortably hold off Democrats this fall.