With midterm elections just a few months away, a 36-hour period last week gave the political world a good picture of President Trump’s approach to campaigning for Republicans with the House and Senate at stake and the clock running down. Call it two steps forward and one step back.

The first step forward was the president’s speech at a Mack Truck plant in Macungie, Pennsylvania, in the Lehigh Valley. The rally was part of Trump’s on-and-off effort to highlight his administration’s economic policies in the run-up to November.

The big issue is the cost of living, of course. Trump has always hated the word “affordability.” Whatever you call it, he has often frustrated aides who wanted him to focus on it more in public appearances. Over the last several months, their hopes for an extended focus on the cost of living have been interrupted by Trump’s military action in Venezuela, a violent immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, a government shutdown and a war in Iran. There has been no smooth road to a midterm message.

But there Trump was on Tuesday, in an important state, talking (mostly) about the economy. It was a good thing, especially if you were on his political team.

Of course, Trump did not talk only about the economy. He talked about all sorts of things. One part of the speech touted his work to lower the price of prescription drugs, which then turned into a riff on the “fat drug” in which he told the story of “a friend of mine who is very fat, sloppy, a brilliant businessman, but he’s a slob, there’s no question about it … and he said, ‘I bought the fat drug,’ and I said, ‘I didn’t know you used it, because it’s not working.’”

On the one hand, some in Trump’s corner might groan at him going off message like that. On the other hand, it was a classic Trump moment in a speech that ran to one hour and 23 minutes. It was the kind of thing that keeps the audience entertained, which is always a big concern for the president.

The step backward came the next day, when Trump was back in Washington. The House and Senate had passed a bill called the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act. It was one of those rare substantive bills that passes with bipartisan majorities, winning 358 votes in the House and 85 in the Senate.

It wasn’t the biggest or most consequential bill in the world, but it appears that some of its provisions to reduce the regulatory burdens on homebuilders would probably make housing somewhat more affordable. Certainly the White House thought so. Press secretary Karoline Leavitt called the bill “one of the most significant pieces of housing affordability legislation in American history,” adding that it “cuts unnecessary red tape, helps increase housing supply and limits the ability of large institutional investors to purchase single-family homes.”

To celebrate its passage, congressional leaders had set up a ceremony and lunch at which Trump would come to the Capitol and sign the bill into law. But 90 minutes before the event, Trump posted on Truth Social that it was off. Trump gave no clue as to what he would do next. Would he veto the bill? Do nothing and let the bill go into law at the end of 10 days? It’s still not clear.

What is clear is that Trump abruptly threw a wrench into things shortly before he was scheduled to take an action to improve the economy. And that means Wednesday was a lost day for midterm campaigning. The timing and staging of it made Trump’s actions appear erratic, too.

Then came Thursday, and Trump got back on track. It happened when he appeared at the America 250 Great American State Fair. The event, which was set to kick off the Washington celebration of the nation’s 250th birthday, had a troubled past. A planned concert fell apart when several entertainers withdrew, claiming that Trump had politicized the event.

At that point, Trump took over and said he would be the main attraction. And so he was. Standing in front of the U.S. Marine Band, Trump delivered a campaign speech that was thorough and — this is the striking part — remarkably concise. It lasted all of 28 minutes. Trump used the occasion to go through his administration’s accomplishments one by one, making the case for giving Republicans another term running Capitol Hill. It was focused, but on the other hand, it was straight from a prompter and lacked the spontaneity of “fat drug”-style asides that make Trump’s speeches entertaining.

A campaign strategist might wish that he could blend the two speeches — present the core case and then add amusing asides to spice it up — and come up with a campaign speech that stays on track and is longer than 28 minutes but a lot shorter than an hour and 23 minutes. But Trump has been making his own speech choices for years and has been elected president of the United States twice, so it is unlikely he would see a great need to do things any other way.

The bottom line is that the president’s midterm campaigning is going forward in fits and starts. That seems understandable, given the size of the problems he has created for himself with closing out the Iran war. But it is still worrisome for Republican lawmakers up for reelection who need Trump’s help in their states and districts.

This content originally appeared on the Washington Examiner at washingtonexaminer.com/daily-memo/4626141/trump-midterms-two-steps-forward-one-step-back/.