We’ve all heard the logic: every time Trump is on the ballot, the Republicans do better. I have heard many a pundit and reporter make such a claim, and Trump himself loves to point it out. The notion is that somehow Trump transcends the party by attracting voters that its candidates otherwise wouldn’t. I get the notion, and will even allow that there are clearly some voters who will vote for Trump and not other Republicans.
However.
This magical notion seems to forget three things.
- Trump lost the popular vote in 2016.
- Trump lost the popular vote and the electoral vote in 2020.
- Trump only won a plurality of the popular vote (49.81%) in 2024, besting Harris by a margin of 1.47% (the closest gap, not counting popular vote/electoral vote inversions since 1968).
To add to #3, he barely won at a moment that was globally bad at the ballot box for parties in power.
None of that list is to ignore that he won in 2016 and 2024, but it should put things in perspective. There is less Trump magic than the legend in his own mind (and in the media’s) would suggest.
Then there is the fact that midterms tend to go against the incumbent party because voters have a chance to express whatever discontent they have about the sitting president and their party. There is always some level of discontent because almost always presidents end up disappointing some part of the electorate.
Trump has especially done so. Indeed, this suggests quite a bit of disappointment:
Or this that I shared not that long ago:
All of this sums to me noting that from the GOP POV, the following are very bad ideas (both via NBC): Presented with bleak polling, the White House moves to make the midterms about Trump, and Trump says he’ll campaign for Republicans in 35 races ahead of the midterms.
From the second link:
“I’m going to take the final 30 days, and maybe a little bit more than that, because it’s all about 35 races,” Trump said at a White House dinner event that included GOP members of Congress. “I’m going to go to every one of those 35 places, and we’re going to see if we can get everyone elected.”
[…]
“I’m going to go up to Alaska for Dan Sullivan,” Trump said, taking a dig at one of Sullivan’s competitors, a retired teacher who is also named Dan Sullivan.
He added that he’ll also travel to Texas and stump for state Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is competing against Democrat James Talarico for a Senate seat.
[…]
“I’m not affected by the election,” Trump said in the Oval Office. “No. 1, I’m not running. My party’s running, and I’m going to help my party.”
Two weeks earlier, Trump sent a different message of sorts to supporters, telling them to “pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot” when they cast their votes in the midterms.
Yes, please pretend.
Even better, from The Atlantic: Trump Plans to Buy Midterm Ads About His Own Record.
Republican strategists are concerned about Trump’s low approval ratings and voter anxiety about the economy. One person familiar with the Oval Office strategy meeting put it this way: “When the issues that you typically campaign on don’t move voters—or voters are pissed off at you about those issues—the question becomes: What do you campaign on?” Some GOP strategists favor focusing entirely on specific races in an effort to convince voters of the merits of individual candidates and local issues.
But Trump himself has rejected that approach. House and Senate Democrats, the president noted during the meeting, will make their fall campaigns a referendum on him. His advisers told him that the poor polling reflects the fact that the voting public still does not know about many of his accomplishments—the dozens of new stock-market highs, a decline in fentanyl deaths, the “sealed” southern border, the increase in domestic-manufacturing production.
The solution Trump settled on, according to three people familiar with the meeting, was to lean into the Democratic strategy of focusing on himself. The president ordered a series of television advertisements about his own record that will serve as a backdrop to the hundreds of individual House and Senate contests.
Sounds good to me.
And then there is the Republican midterm “convention” that some are calling “Trump-a-palooza.” Many Republicans find that they need to sort the mail or wash the cat these days. Via Politico: Republicans aren’t exactly flocking to Trump’s midterm convention.
President Donald Trump has a vision for next week’s GOP convention in Dallas: a televised spectacle putting Republican candidates in front of midterm voters and top party donors just two months before the Election Day — with Trump himself headlining the show.
But a POLITICO survey of more than 70 GOP candidates and members revealed that most either do not plan to attend or are still weighing whether to go. Dozens more declined to share their plans.
The 45 Republicans cited a variety of reasons for skipping the first midterm convention put on by a major party in more than four decades. Some cited prior obligations such as fundraisers or events in their districts that were planned before the convention was scheduled in June. Others had personal conflicts, like weddings and family events, and still others raised qualms about the five-figure-minimum fees that party officials want attending lawmakers to pony up.
And some Republicans in tough races are steering clear of the gathering — which has come to be called “Trump-a-palooza” in some GOP circles — as they face growing hesitation about associating themselves with the polarizing president so close to the election.
For example, known Trump flack James Comer has a very specific reason he isn’t attending.
Hey, man, when you have “stuff” already planned, whatcha gonna do?
