GOP hopes fade in Georgia and North Carolina as party shifts focus in battle for Senate

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ATLANTA (AP) — Republicans once saw Georgia and North Carolina as promising pieces of their strategy to keep control of the Senate. But hopes of winning the two states 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 Donald Trump carried narrowly in the 2024 presidential race, though they are shifting greater resources to states they see as more competitive. The party now is spending heavily to defend reliably Republican Texas, and Trump is planning to campaign for the Republican incumbent in Ohio, both places Trump won easily in 2024.

Some Republicans also have become more vocal in their complaining that Trump has squandered an opportunity to more comfortably hold off Democrats this fall. Among their grievances, they say the president failed to bring the unpopular war in Iran to a close, has dismissed the pinch of high fuel prices and engaged late in the midterm campaigns.

And though Democrats must still win several seats Republicans hold to win back the majority, the GOP is looking more at protecting seats they already hold than picking up Georgia, and they are signaling serious problems in North Carolina.

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