President Donald Trump has ramped up his midterm tour around the country, visiting a new state almost every day.
The goal, according to several GOP strategists, is to mobilize low-propensity Republican voters to show up at the polls. Trump primarily has visited states that he won by a large margin in 2024 but where Republican candidates are now facing competitive races.
“Our goal is to go around there and have a united team, and to get people out there motivated to go vote, and that’s the primary job of the party,” said Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters. “He’s delivered these low-propensity voters three different times. That’s why he keeps on saying, ‘I’m going to be on the ballot,’ because he is.”
Trump kicked off his 32-day midterm campaign blitz in Texas and Oklahoma on Oct. 1. He has since traveled to Mobile, Alabama; Vandalia, Ohio; Grand Island, Nebraska; Baltimore, Maryland; and San Antonio, Texas. He has scheduled trips to Syracuse, New York on Friday and Clarksville, Tennessee on Saturday.
Gruters said Trump will later visit Arizona and Florida. He pushed back on the idea that the president’s blitz is focused on traditionally red areas with tight races.
“We’re going to Arizona,” he said. “We’re going everywhere. We’re going to competitive states. We’re going to red states.”
“It’s a giant collective effort by the team, where we’re united to motivate the base and to get them out and to get them excited about and to let people know what the alternative is, and that’s what the Left offers,” he added, “and in order to do that, we have to go everywhere.”
While some have said candidates would benefit from distancing themselves from Trump due to his low approval ratings, a GOP strategist in Ohio said Republicans have more to gain by embracing the president’s visits.
“I know some states people are nervous about him showing up, but in ‘18, the president came, and I think it was a big reason why Mike DeWine won, and I think it could be helpful here too,” the strategist said.
“It’s not like every Democrat isn’t associating every Republican with the president, right?” he added. “So if the president is willing to come to our state and energize our voters, it’s a net positive.”
Every time Trump visits a new place, the RNC’s GOP.com and Protect the Vote websites see a significant increase in traffic in that location, Gruters noted.
“We expect that every single one of these visits will pay massive dividends,” he said. The energy and enthusiasm Trump brings in rallies spreads to other areas “like wildfire.”
“It allows our team to then take that energy and to put people to work to get the people to turn out,” he said.
With less than a month remaining until the midterms, the goal is not to change voters’ minds, but to convince Republicans to take the elections seriously and come to the polls, according to Texas GOP strategist Brendan Steinhauser.
“It’s kind of like convincing Republicans that this is a real race and that they better show up and they better bring their friends and family to vote because Democrats could win,” he said. “And so I think that would be the strategy because very few people have not made their mind up at this point.”
Gruters said Republicans are aiming to “defy history” by retaining power in midterms as the party that controls the White House.
“If the Democrats take control, they’re going to investigate, obstruct, and impeach,” he warned.
Trump knows what’s at stake if this happens, Gruters said.
“They tried to throw him in jail. They’ve tried to kill him. They tried to bankrupt him,” he said. “The left is in a lot of ways unhinged, and they want to take away people’s rights, and they want to weaponize the government against people, and they’re going to continue to do that.”
Gruters said Republicans are going to spend more money this midterm cycle than ever before. He said he doesn’t think many other presidents have campaigned as actively in midterms as Trump.
“We’re going to outspend the Democrats collectively when you look at all the conservative groups, and that’s all due to the president and his policies and his willingness to to work hard,” he said, “and so I’m extremely optimistic about our chances. But if we’re going to defy history, we have to turn out that base, and that’s what the president’s doing.”
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[ H/T The Daily Signal ]
