Congressional Republicans are preparing to share the stage with a president who has spent the August recess complicating their efforts to run their races on their own terms.

Why it matters: Republican lawmakers fled Washington for the latter part of the summer, eager to localize their races.

• But President Trump keeps nationalizing the election.
• In the process, he's staking out positions that run counter to GOP orthodoxy on issues including beef imports and child care subsidies.

🚗 Driving the news: The Trump administration's plan to extend federal child care subsidies to families with a stay-at-home parent is the latest policy flashpoint.

• 🌵 His call to rename New Mexico is his most recent cultural one.
• The child care proposal — championed by Vice President Vance — sparked backlash from some conservative lawmakers and pundits who tagged the policy as "socialism" at a time when Republicans have made anti-socialism a central campaign message.
• And whatever the merits of calling New Mexico "New America," it's likely not what Greg Cunningham, the GOP candidate in NM-03, will focus on when he takes the stage at the convention.

Between the lines: Although Trump isn't formally taking attendance at the convention, there will be some notable absences.

• Sen. Susan Collins won't make it — and isn't making an excuse. Sen. Dan Sullivan will stay home to prepare for a Saturday debate.
• More than 100 GOP lawmakers are expected to skip the event.

🌎 Zoom out: Trump has repeatedly forced Republicans to grapple with policies that aggravate their constituencies or collide with their own ideological convictions.

• 🐄 His plan to import up to 300,000 metric tons of beef tariff-free for 90 days inflamed GOP lawmakers in red states.
• More than a dozen GOP senators publicly criticized the move, warning it would hurt American cattle ranchers.

Imposing higher tariffs on Canadian goods threatened to bring a trade war to two must-win border states: Maine and Michigan.

• ✈️ And his call yesterday to target Canadian aircraft manufacturer Bombardier could have outsized economic implications in Kansas, a red state with an increasingly competitive Senate race.
• Trump ally Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) was forced to break with Trump over the call to boycott. Bombardier is a key employer in Kansas.

🤖 Republicans are taking an à la carte approach to data centers, which have suddenly become a political liability. Candidates in both parties have been scrambling to distance themselves from the industry.

• But Trump isn't brooking any nuance on the issue, calling communities that oppose data centers "backwards and poor." He doubled down four days later.

💪 Trump reacted to a surprisingly strong jobs report Friday by threatening to cut off trade with certain countries unless the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates.

• Congressional Republicans spent months defending the Fed's independence amid the administration's attacks on then-chair Jerome Powell — even leading to a hold-up on the confirmation of Trump's chosen new Fed chair.
• Trump seems to be wading back into the interest rates fight as inflation and affordability become the GOP's biggest election concerns.

Trump is also restarting hostilities with Iran, dashing any GOP hopes that gas prices will drop before November.

The bottom line: With less than two months to go until Election Day, Trump's coattails are increasingly looking short or nonexistent — and this week's midterm convention could either reverse or entrench that trend.

Share this story

— Stef W. Kight and Hans Nichols

House Republicans' decision to effectively abandon what was supposed to be a key battleground district in New York is an early example of the cold calculus both parties will have to increasingly apply as Election Day approaches.

Why it matters: As much as they'd like to win everywhere, both parties know that's not possible and are determining where their money will have the most impact.

• In this case, the GOP has determined that New York's 19th district, a perennial battleground seat that has routinely changed hands between Democrats and Republicans over the last several election cycles, doesn't warrant the investment.
• The seat, currently held by freshman Rep. Josh Riley (D-N.Y.), was one of the National Republican Congressional Committee's stated targets as recently as last month.

📺 Driving the news: Congressional Leadership Fund, House Republicans' main super PAC, removed $4.8 million in television ad reservations supporting state Sen. Peter Oberacker in the district last week, according to ad tracking firm AdImpact.

• The NRCC also removed Oberacker from its "MAGA Majority" list, according to Punchbowl News.

Between the lines: Oberacker is seen by Republicans on Capitol Hill as too flawed a candidate to seriously challenge Riley, according to multiple GOP sources familiar with the matter.

• One major issue that sources cited is the controversy around a post Oberacker made on Facebook in 2015 praising his grandfather's military service in Nazi Germany.
• 🔥 Another is his campaign's cash burn rate: He had raised around $1.2 million as of the end of June but spent nearly $850,000 of it, including $350,000 on consultants, according to campaign finance filings.
• 🥊 The Oberacker campaign's spending, one source told us, has been a source of behind-the-scenes tension with national Republicans.

🎧 What we're hearing: "Spending a few million in Upstate New York against Riley.… It's not like he's got a lot of enemies, and he raises money — it's just a hard environment, hard to argue," a Republican source told us.

• The Oberacker campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Share this story

— Andrew Solender