The top issues on the minds of voters heading into the midterm elections are inflation, energy, the crime wave, and consumer confidence. If Republicans blow this opportunity to continue to expose the failures of the Democratic Party by instead opting to focus on former President Donald Trump, they will lose, and they will deserve it.

Recent attacks against the FBI for executing a search warrant for classified documents at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence are a distraction from the real issues at stake in the upcoming election. The majority of Americans do not care about stories that do not affect them, including the legal troubles of both Donald Trump and the president’s son Hunter Biden.

Republican strategist Nathan Gonzalez of Inside Elections admits that there has been a boost for Democrat enthusiasm following the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade as evidenced by the referendum vote in Kansas to preserve the right to abortion in the state’s constitution. However, he is still predicting an easy GOP takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives, while the Senate is a pure toss-up. Inflation and crime still outweigh abortion as issues that voters will factor in their votes.

The GOP should also focus more attention on the liberal prosecutors who have gone rogue in support of “soft on crime” policies that have led to the spike in crime in major U.S. cities. With the recent spike, it is unfathomable why any Republican would be calling to defund the FBI, the agency that is tasked with protecting the United States from both foreign and domestic threats. The only reason any “conservative” politician like Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene or Arizona congressman Paul Gosar would use this messaging is to appease Donald Trump.

The midterm elections need to be a referendum on Joe Biden, not Donald Trump. The economy and crime are the top two issues that Joe Biden has been failing the American people, which is reflected in his continued low approval ratings.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has been concerned about the quality of some of the GOP Senate candidates in key races that will determine the chamber’s balance of power. He fears that some candidates will underperform in their races because of their close ties to Trump. However, his super PAC Senate Leadership Fund is still investing nearly $150 million to get them over the finish line to deliver a Republican Senate majority.

While Biden’s approval rating is 38 percent according to the most recent Reuters poll, the GOP is struggling to take a lead in the generic congressional ballot polling. They remain nearly tied with the Democrats in terms of party preference for the upcoming midterm elections. This is because there has been a recent shift in the national narrative towards focus on abortion and Donald Trump, which does not benefit the GOP.