Like nearly everything he does, President Donald Trump’s midterm strategy has certainly been a bit unconventional. First of all, he’s been campaigning and leading rallies almost like he did when he ran for president. A sitting president campaigning this hard for midterms is unprecedented.
Another facet of Trump’s unorthodox campaign trail is that he’s only traveled to deep-red districts. He’s largely appearing in regions that he would win by 20 or 30 points. So why is he visiting these places instead of the swing states?
In his rallies, Trump has asked voters to pretend that he is on the ballot. On the surface, this sounds pompous and arrogant, words that will turn off virtually every left-leaning voter, as well as many moderate voters. However, those crowds aren’t the target audience here. It’s Republicans — more specifically, the MAGA base.
The past two years have seen a lot of good and a few bad things from the Trump administration. The border is secure, an astronomical improvement over the Biden administration’s open border. Tax cuts and government reductions have both been major hallmarks of this era, benefiting Americans on many fronts. However, prices have spiked due to our war in Iran, and that hasn’t helped the average American’s spending power in general, which is arguably the reason Trump was elected.
Leftmedia outlets have taken that latter point and run with it as the basis for their midterm strategy, and the general persistent disdain of all things Trump has reached everywhere and everyone. That’s what they want you to think.
In reality, the GOP likely has roughly the same support it did in 2024, but the Democrat Party is putting in more effort to oppose than the majority party is to support its own reelection. That is why President Trump is campaigning in these deep-red districts.
The Leftmedia will tell you that Trump has fallen so far in popularity that Republicans are struggling about whether to vote. They are trying to portray him as desperately attempting to hold the last gasp of power as the Democrats win everything that isn’t solid red.
The Republicans’ goal is to rally the same voter base they had in 2024 to win the current midterms. Logically, that is all they need to maintain their majority. However, in a statewide Senate race, throwing all your weight behind the largest red districts while not paying attention to the more purple districts in the same state is more intentional. While a Trump appearance in a purple or blue district may do more harm than good, a visit to a red district, especially one rarely visited by major government officials, could drive even more people to the polls than normal.
The midterms are a time when many people, especially Republicans, pay less attention to the political landscape than they would in a presidential election year. It’s clear that the Democrats have been working harder to win the midterms. President Trump rallying the GOP troops to turn out in larger numbers, imploring them to “pretend he’s on the ballot,” is certainly a much better strategy than most people will give him credit for.
