For President Donald Trump, this week’s elections are about him. For his fellow Republicans, the risk is voters will agree.

Midterms almost always serve as a referendum on the president’s party, and losses typically ensue. But Trump’s decisions to impose tariffs, start a war and oversee extravagant Washington renovations — largely without congressional consultation — have made it harder for Republicans to navigate those historical headwinds.

There is a direct connection between his actions and higher gas prices, costlier groceries and persistently high inflation.

Republicans cannot blame the fallout from those decisions on past administrations when Trump has owned them so fulsomely. They also cannot easily distance themselves from an unpopular president who demands loyalty and routinely tells voters the economy is just fine.

At virtually every juncture before Election Day on Tuesday, Trump has complicated the task of protecting Republican majorities in Congress.

The Iran war is “making it exponentially harder for Republicans to keep the House and Senate,” Rep. Derrick Van Orden of Wisconsin, one of the most vulnerable House Republicans, said in a debate while noting his support for the effort.

Trump’s late moves to boost GOP may not be enough

Republicans have had one distinct advantage: money.

Trump’s political groups spent nearly $277 million to boost Republicans since September, a staggering amount that puts this year on pace to be the most expensive midterm ever.

But it may not be enough to carry the GOP.

His import taxes disrupted the agricultural economy and triggered a trade war with Canada, putting Republicans on defense in Senate races from Iowa, Michigan and Kansas to Nebraska, Ohio and Maine. The war in Iran that he said would be over in weeks continues eight months later with no clear strategy for conclusion, starkly at odds with his pledge to not engage in Middle East conflicts.

"This administration’s actions are directly responsible for rising costs,” former Democratic President Barack Obama said in Ohio.

Trump has shown little sympathy for Americans coping with rising costs. He has dismissed affordability challenges as a “hoax” and told a Georgia rally that he does not “give a damn” about criticism of gas prices — even as he celebrated profits for U.S. oil and gas companies.

All the while, he has grown far more wealthy, taking in $1.2 billion from crypto businesses while most investors lost money.