After a recent media appearance one evening in DC, I caught up with a prominent Republican — someone GOP candidates have flocked to for guidance for years. On the way out of the studio, he joked with me about a phrase spreading among party members who are facing reelection this November. It’s closer to a prayer than a slogan: I wish he would disappear.
The reference is to Donald Trump, of course. Never before have Republicans had to campaign under the banner of such a weak figurehead, nor one so insistent on stapling his toxic brand to the party, whether the party likes it or not.
I recounted a story from the last time GOP candidates had to survive a Trump-era off-year election, in 2018, when I was inside the first Trump administration. As the midterms approached, I remember friends on House Speaker Paul Ryan’s team sharing a blunter plea whenever Trump’s name was brought up: “Please go the f**k away.”
“Yeah, they’re sayin’ that,” the GOP media personality sighed, “but it’s worse this time.”
He’s right, and the numbers prove it. If you compare Trump’s standing right now to 2018, you see a tale of two presidencies, electorally speaking. In the summer of 2018, Trump’s approval ratings hovered in mid-40s; by election day, exit polls put him at 45 per cent. Today, he sits at around 34 per cent (with some recent surveys showing him bottoming out at 30) and with a stunning disapproval rating of around 60 per cent, worse than even Joe Biden’s dismal standing at this point in 2022.
By nearly every measure, my former boss enters this midterm election as the weakest president in the modern polling era.
The collapse among independents — the voters who decide swing seats — is even starker. In August 2018, Trump’s approval with independents sat in the mid-40s. This August, it’s 18 per cent. Recent surveys have him more than 50 points underwater with these voters. Can the party get over that hump? Not if history is any guide. There’s no modern precedent for a party facing numbers that bad and not getting walloped.
Remember what happened in 2018, when Trump’s numbers were far better than they are today? I do. Behind the scenes, he was apoplectic. Democrats flipped 41 House seats in the midterms that year (the party’s biggest gain since the post-Watergate wipeout of 1974), and won the national popular vote by nearly nine points and almost ten million ballots. That represented the largest raw margin in midterm history and the highest midterm turnout in a century – when Trump was ten points above where he is now.
Trump, whose operation has been flogging 2028 merchandise, is keeping his powder dry for whatever his political future holds (Photo: Mandel Ngan/ AFP via Getty Images)He was not humbled by the loss or persuaded to adopt a more conciliatory tone in order to work with the opposition. He became unhinged. He demanded that we stonewall the new Congress, shutting the doors of the Executive Branch to all investigations into his alleged misconduct. He purged his team of the people who said “no” to his worst ideas – White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, Defence Secretary Jim Mattis, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen and so on – and doubled down on his erraticism. It became a self-fulfilling prophecy. Trump was later investigated and impeached twice for the schemes that followed.
But I don’t expect GOP candidates to be thinking that far ahead. Right now, they’re just worried about Trump’s terrible poll numbers and the fact that they can’t seem to shake the man. He’s like a smiling hostage taker. He continues to bear-hug GOP candidates ahead of the final sprint rather than give them space, insisting they publicly pledge their loyalty before they have to attempt feebly to convince voters they have “independence” from Donald Trump.
Case in point: the “midterm convention” Trump has cooked up for early next month in Dallas, Texas. There’s never been such a thing; conventions are usually just for presidential election years. In fact, the Republican National Committee had to rewrite its rules in January to allow it. Now the RNC chairman is openly billing the two-day event as a “Trumpapalooza”, surely to the eye rolls of swing-state candidates, who would probably suffer less politically if they were spotted doing drugs at a music festival than if they were caught flashing forced grins and thumbs-up at a Trump carnival.
And that’s the whole problem. The last thing endangered Republicans want is stage time with the beleaguered President. They worry the whole affair will look and feel like a presidential convention — a coronation of the man dragging them underwater — at the exact moment they need him to keep his distance.
The only solace Republicans have is that they probably won’t lose 41 seats this time, but not because voters are happier. Realistically, there aren’t that many seats to lose. The mid-decade gerrymandering spree Trump demanded (starting in Texas) has shrunk the battlefield to a sliver. The Cook Political Report rates just 18 of 435 House seats as genuine toss-ups, with analysts saying that redistricting has “eviscerated” competition. The seawall Trump built against the coming wave may be the only thing that saves his party from him.
Worse still for Republican candidates is that the man tying himself to their fate has been remarkably stingy with his money. Trump’s super PAC fundraising committee has amassed a war chest in excess of $400m. Of that, roughly $2.3m (about half a per cent) has gone to help Republican candidates. Recent disbursements, according to federal filings, include consulting fees, bank charges and an event photographer. Bloomberg reported at the end of July that Trump had yet to approve spending a single dollar of it on the midterms, with his allies increasingly panicked that he never will.
When Punchbowl News asked him this month about “the super PAC your allies control”, Trump bristled at the framing. “Not my allies,” he said, “I control.” Then he inflated the sum for good measure: “$800 million. I could spend it on anything I want.” Set aside for a moment that that federal law requires super PACs to operate independently of the politicians they support (a legal nicety the President seems indifferent to) and focus instead on his central claim — that he can spend it on anything he wants.
Anything. Or more to the point, any year. In the same breath that Trump conceded last week that the law didn’t permit a third term, he volunteered that he’d “love to run”. Days later, he was back on social media posting an image of himself in a “Trump 2028” hat that his operation sells. If you’re a GOP strategist wondering why the cash isn’t flowing, I can point you to the answer, sitting right under the red brim of that hat. Trump is keeping the powder dry for himself, and for whatever he thinks his political future holds.
So Republican candidates find themselves in the worst possible position this year. Intimately shackled to Trump’s flagging brand, yet getting almost nothing from the massive bank account upon which he sits. They’re like the heirs to a billionaire who refuses to give his children an allowance but still insists on showing up at their parties, holding court and taking credit for everything they’ve ever done.
Which brings me back to the whispered prayers of swing-district Republicans, desperately wishing the President would go away this autumn because he’s a danger to the GOP brand. To them, I have a simple message: you’re ten years too late.
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