Trump Plans Midterm Advertising Focused on His Record

<p>President Trump gathered his top political advisers in the Oval Office early this month to discuss how to allocate his super PAC’s $400 million political war chest with fewer than 100 days remaining before the midterm elections.</p><p>Republican strategists are concerned about Trump's low approval ratings and voter anxiety regarding the economy. One person familiar with the Oval Office strategy meeting stated, “When the issues that you typically campaign on don’t move voters—or voters are upset about those issues—the question becomes: What do you campaign on?” Some GOP strategists recommend focusing entirely on specific races to persuade voters about individual candidates and local issues.</p><p>However, Trump has rejected that approach. He noted during the meeting that House and Senate Democrats will frame their fall campaigns as a referendum on him. His advisers indicated that the poor polling reflects that the public is not fully aware of many of his accomplishments, including new stock-market highs, a decline in fentanyl deaths, the “sealed” southern border, and increased domestic manufacturing production.</p><p>The solution Trump decided on, according to three people familiar with the meeting, was to embrace the Democratic strategy of focusing on himself. He ordered a series of television advertisements highlighting his record, which will serve as a backdrop to the numerous individual House and Senate contests. Trump requested what one person described as “environmental lift” ads—commercials that would broadly nationalize the midterms around his victories—and suggested that the ad makers utilize his own on-camera statements as material. “Go look at the clips,” Trump instructed his team, according to this person. “I cite accomplishments all the time.”</p><p>This decision has led to a midterm-election ad campaign from MAGA Inc., the primary source of Trump’s political fundraising, according to individuals familiar with the discussions, all of whom requested anonymity to discuss internal conversations. Most of MAGA Inc.’s spending is still expected to target specific House and Senate races, for which the group has been forming teams to analyze polling, voter modeling, and message testing. “We are going to unload the guns on both chambers real soon,” one of the individuals said. Another person noted that since Trump will inevitably be part of voters’ considerations, emphasizing his achievements is logical. “I think everybody does understand that the president and his agenda are on the ballot to some degree,” another person stated.</p><p>A spokesperson for MAGA Inc. mentioned that the group does not comment on internal deliberations or plans. Olivia Wales, a White House spokesperson, stated that Trump is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress. “President Trump is cleaning up Joe Biden’s mess,” she said in a statement. “There is a great story to tell because the United States of America has never been stronger than under his leadership.”</p><p>Trump’s decision to allocate part of his spending to highlight himself parallels President Biden’s decision in the fall of 2023 to launch ads promoting his legislative record as he sought to boost his approval rating ahead of his reelection bid. However, Trump is not on the ballot this fall, which presents new challenges. A strategy of promoting Trump’s achievements could potentially backfire by aiding Democratic efforts to frame each race around national issues at a time when Trump’s approval rating is low. Nevertheless, given the midterm challenges, Republicans may have little choice but to present their most effective communicator to voters.</p><p>The political climate—an economic election in which voters feel their lives have not improved, despite some positive indicators—resembles the challenges Democrats faced in 2010 and 2022, when the electorate blamed their party for the economic fallout from the 2008 financial crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, respectively. However, the situation Trump faces is different in some respects. Polls indicate that voters are not only anxious about inflation but also frustrated with Trump’s foreign policy decisions and concerned about government corruption. Before Trump’s first midterm election in 2018, the Pew Research Center found that 51 percent of the country believed the economy was doing well, including 13 percent who described it as excellent. By July of this year, only 22 percent felt the economy was doing well, and only 3 percent described it as excellent. Trump’s economic approval rating was around 50 percent in 2018 public polls, while most polls this year show his standing has fallen into the 30s.</p><p>Republican political consultants have expressed concerns both publicly and privately in recent weeks about the overly optimistic tone of some of Trump’s economic messaging. Democrats face a familiar challenge. “You’ve got to take voters from where they are to where you want to go, and the only way to do that is to not dismiss in any way what they know—and what I mean by that is, you can’t go in playing ‘It’s Christmas Time’ when that’s the last holiday they can afford,” Rahm Emanuel, who worked for the Obama and Biden administrations and is a potential contender in the 2028 presidential election, stated. “They’re going to put you on mute.”</p><p>In 2010, Barack Obama dealt with this issue by using a “car in the ditch” metaphor to explain why, after the 2008 financial crisis, the promised recovery felt slow. However, even that metaphor proved ineffective, according to Obama’s senior strategist David Axelrod. “We sort of abandoned it because what we found was even that was offensive to people, because it felt like we were trying to blame others,” he said. “What we learned very quickly is, you cannot jawbone people into feeling what they do not feel in their own lives, and Biden defied that to his own detriment.”</p><p>Trump has shown a preference for hyperbole over complex metaphors, branding his second term in office as a new “Golden Age.” While campaigning last Friday for Senator Darline Graham of South Carolina, Trump spoke positively about his second term. “You have record manufacturing and auto plants being built right now in the United States and in South Carolina,” he stated. “We have the greatest economy in our history. Now, some people haven’t seen it yet, but they will.” Axelrod noted that Trump claimed at the same rally that his own polling “should be at 100 percent on the economy.” “If you’re the average person out there, you’re seeing that and thinking, What planet is he living on?” Axelrod said. “You have to acknowledge that people are struggling and this is a work in progress.”</p><p>David Winston, a Republican strategist working with congressional leadership, emphasized that the key to the midterms is whether voters feel they can manage better than before Trump returned to office. “So Republicans need to be talking about what actions they took in terms of the economy to at least get things moving in the right direction, and what the outcome has been,” he said. “This is one where it can’t be a laundry list of 35 talking points. This has to be one or two key things.”</p><p>Trump’s advisers aim to emphasize a specific set of facts about his accomplishments over the past 19 months. This list is likely to include new tax breaks for certain workers and seniors, the rise of the stock market over the past two years, military actions targeting fentanyl, and efforts to “seal” the U.S.-Mexico border, among others. Rather than distancing himself from congressional elections—the preference of some Republican candidates in swing districts—Trump has argued that he can drive turnout in those races by making himself the focal point of the conversation. Next month, he will host a two-day “midterm convention” rally in Dallas aimed at nationalizing the November races as a choice between extreme Democrats and Republican accomplishments. Trump has urged his supporters to treat November as if his name is on the ballot. “What I really want you to do is pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot. Just come and vote. It’s so important,” Trump stated on Friday in South Carolina. “Just say that I’m on the ballot one more time.”</p><p>In other significant ways, Trump is better positioned than either Obama or Biden were at this point in their midterm races. He has a substantial cash advantage, due to aggressive fundraising over the first year of his term that collected tens of millions from crypto companies, AI entrepreneurs, and traditional Republican donors. He also benefits from a gerrymandered political map in the House that has created a cushion of Republican-leaning seats after mid-cycle redistricting. The Senate majority will be determined by races in Republican-leaning states such as Texas, Alaska, Ohio, and Iowa.</p><p>Trump’s advisers have not yet disclosed to Republican consultants how much money the president will allocate for the midterms, according to people familiar with the matter. However, the importance of Trump’s involvement in the election may be less significant to some Republicans than the fact that MAGA Inc. is beginning to spend. Some party members have expressed concerns for months that Trump might reserve his fundraising for the 2028 presidential election cycle—or for other purposes entirely.</p><p>MAGA Inc. has commenced work on various campaigns targeting specific House and Senate races for the fall. Much of that advertising is expected to include negative attacks on Democratic candidates, which is the traditional role of independent super PACs. MAGA Inc. has commissioned polling and research, along with modeling for the targeted House and Senate races. It has also shared information with other independent groups, including the Senate Leadership Fund and the Congressional Leadership Fund, which are associated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota and Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana.</p><p>In early spring, Trump’s aides aimed to launch a disciplined message to voters focused on Trump’s accomplishments, but that effort was largely disrupted by the ongoing conflict with Iran. Trump’s approval ratings have declined further since then. This is the president’s last opportunity for a reset, and his team is expressing confidence that they can succeed. “Anybody that is saying we are headed for a shellacking absolutely can’t just read the numbers,” one of the individuals familiar with the Oval Office meeting stated. With early voting commencing in the first weeks of October, Republicans are again betting that more Trump is their best strategy to counter Democratic hopes of a wave election.</p>