Where the grass is Greener

Donald Trump's chief of staff told reporters that the president would be traveling the country to take his argument on the economy directly to undecided voters. So why is he visiting a congressional district he won by a very comfortable 37 points just 15 months ago?

The way Trump tells it, all he does is win, win, win. But the two-term president has faced his share of political setbacks. Some of the most bruising were delivered by the state of Georgia. 

The once staunchly Republican state's 16 Electoral College votes slipped out of Trump's grasp in 2020. His efforts to undo that loss led to two criminal indictments. More recently, a messy breakup with the state's highest-profile Republican, Marjorie Taylor Greene, revealed faint cracks in the foundation of Trump's MAGA movement. 

Trump returns to Georgia on Thursday to rally voters around his economic agenda and his party's bid to retain control of Congress in November's midterm elections. Trump's speech in Rome, Georgia, will highlight his plans "to make life affordable for working people," White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said.

With the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll underscoring Americans' dwindling confidence in Trump's economic stewardship, the president will be under greater pressure when he delivers his State of the Union address on Tuesday. 

At first glance, Georgia's 14th congressional district is a curious place for a Trump persuasion campaign. The Republican-controlled state legislature carved the Pac-Man-shaped district out of largely rural Appalachian foothills and it's rated the most Republican district in the state. Greene, who represented the onetime carpet-manufacturing hub, resigned after her split with Trump. The largely blue-collar residents still heavily favor Trump. 

Trump endorsed area district attorney Clay Fuller in the March 10 special election to replace Greene, but that didn't scare off the rest of the crowded Republican field. The election is a test of Trump's power to steer MAGA's votes. After Democratic sweeps in elections last November, Trump identified the problem: he wasn't on the ballot. 

Beneath the surface, Georgia's 14th also shows how the state remains a risk for Republicans in 2028. Hundreds of workers in the district depend on a green-energy economy Trump has spurned as they punch clocks in a Korean-owned solar panel factory. 

At the southeastern edges of the district are growing subdivisions and small towns increasingly populated by a work-from-home "laptop class," who have taken advantage of locations housing a half-hour's drive from Atlanta. These pockets voted more heavily for Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris in 2024 than they did for President Joe Biden in 2020 and are keeping the state in play for Democrats. 

Reuters/Ipsos surveyed 1,117 adults nationwide on Feb. 13-16.

Follow our polling on the president's approval ratings here.

The limelight of 2028 presidential election speculation swung to Munich, Germany, this past week. Several possible candidates appeared at the annual Munich Security Conference. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio drew a standing ovation for his remarks on transatlantic relations.

Rubio, a Republican who Trump has tipped as a possible successor, was reviewed largely positively a year after U.S. Vice President JD Vance shocked the crowd with a speech that was stridently critical of Europe. Even California Governor Gavin Newsom, a possible 2028 candidate, offered qualified praise of Rubio's speech: "I liked it tonally," he said, also in Munich.

But if Rubio felt the slightest tinge of schadenfreude it may have been due to the domestic reaction to Democratic U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Another potential 2028 candidate, Ocasio-Cortez, was roasted on social media over a hesitating response to a question about U.S.-Taiwan relations.