Donald Trump’s former White House counselor, Kellyanne Conway, does not think Republicans should move on from her former boss, despite signs his control of the party could cost it the chance to take Congress in November.

Speaking to Fox News on Tuesday, Conway said: “Those who want to move on from Trump: You go first.”

Democrats are increasingly confident they can capitalize on Trump’s dominance of the Republican party, their own legislative successes and the need to protect abortion rights and hold the House and Senate.

So much so, they have controversially boosted extremist Trump-endorsed candidates, including election deniers, in order to give independents and Republican moderates a stark choice at the polls.

But Conway, who remains close to Trump, doubled down on the appeal of the Trumpist agenda.

“Anytime Democrats tell you which Republican should be your nominee, run in the other direction, because they know that they’re fixing to make that person unpalatable,” she said.

Democrats think Trump and his supporters are unpalatable given his refusal to admit defeat in 2020 and his lie about electoral fraud; his legal jeopardy on that front and over his business affairs; and his furious reaction to an FBI search at his Mar-a-Lago home, over his retention of classified White House material.

Democrats have performed strongly in special elections, particularly by focusing on the supreme court’s removal of the right to abortion. In conservative Kansas, a ballot measure came out in favor of the right to choose. In key Senate races including Pennsylvania, Ohio, Arizona and Georgia, Trump-backed candidates are struggling.

Conway claimed voters were aligned with Republicans on key issues. Those obsessed with Trump, she said, “don’t spend a minute learning what the 74 million Trump-Pence voters want in these midterm elections. That’s what I study every single day.”

More than 74 million Americans voted for Trump and Mike Pence in 2020. Unsaid by Conway: more than 81 million voted for Joe Biden.

“When Trump is the leader of the party, when he’s involved in the conversation,” Conway said, Republicans enjoy results such as in 2018, when they celebrated “four [Senate] pick-ups from blue to red, the first time since John Kennedy in 1962 that a president in power’s party picked up a single Senate seat in a midterm election”.

Republicans also lost the House in 2018, losing 40 seats under a so-called blue wave.

On Fox News, the pollster Mark Penn contested Conway’s comments.

“There’s a very hefty group, 10%, who voted for [Biden] last time who don’t like him this time,” he said. “Why aren’t they flocking [to Republicans]? They care about inflation. They care about crime, they care about immigration.

“They’re not flocking because of Donald Trump, guns and abortion. Those three are Democratic core issues for them. And so that’s why this race is right now a lot closer than you would normally expect it to be.”