President Donald Trump, in a change of direction, has begun expressing some doubts about Republicans’ chances in the midterm elections as he travels to Nebraska on Monday to rally with Sen. Pete Ricketts in a new stop in the red state.
Confidence is a hallmark of the 80-year-old chief executive’s presidential personality, so his willingness to acknowledge that he and other top Republicans are “worried” about a number of races is unusual. But that’s exactly what he did during interactions with reporters in the Oval Office and during campaign stops in Texas, Oklahoma and Ohio.
During a stop in Denton, Texas, on Friday, Trump called “affordability” a “fake” word concocted by Democrats for purely political reasons. But he also called persistent inflation “very real” and said his party needed to find a way to explain it, just weeks before Election Day.
“But they’re the ones who caused inflation. I’m the one who brings it down, and we have to be able to get that word out – one way or another – because they use the word affordability,” Trump said, looking down and shaking his head.
“And what they say is, ‘Yeah, but affordable,’ and everyone thinks the prices are high because of me, but that’s not the case,” he said.
The August Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the cost of goods increased 0.4 percent in August. According to the American Automobile Association, the national average price for a gallon of unleaded gasoline Monday was $4.37 and that of diesel was $6.32, compared with $3.13 (unleaded) and $3.69 (diesel) a year ago.
After bad weather forced him to travel from Denton to Durant, Oklahoma, in a motorcade — sometimes reaching 98 mph on wet roads, according to a pool reporter traveling with him — Trump was candid about his reading of the upcoming election.
“I feel a little stupid, you know. I say, ‘Get out and vote, get out and vote.’ You’re going to, they’re going to win in the last half, but they’re still going to come out and vote,” Trump said at a rally in Oklahoma for Republican gubernatorial candidate Mike Mazzei. “We’re worried about Michigan. We’re worried about Texas. We’re worried about a few states.”
He told the crowd there were as many as 40 races he was concerned about, saying the GOP needed to “get the message out.” He again begged Republican voters to make this race a referendum on him: “So you have to pretend I’m on the ticket and run for a midterm victory that’s really too big to fake.” »
Trump will attempt to do so again Monday when campaigning in the heavily Republican Cornhusker State, where Ricketts also enjoys a financial advantage but is in a “Lean R” race, according to Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales.
‘Ensure’
Asked about his travels, Trump did not clearly explain the reasons for his focus on Republican states.
“Well, I won them all by a lot,” he told reporters Friday at a rally as he left the White House. “I’m just going to be sure.”
He also questions the reasons for a decades-old political trend: the ruling party typically suffers setbacks in midterm congressional elections.
“For some reason, I don’t understand it, no one understands it, no one has been able to explain it. Whoever wins the presidency, Republican or Democrat, automatically performs poorly in the midterms. I don’t know why, you know, but we shouldn’t (lose),” he said Wednesday during an exchange with reporters in the Oval Office.
He also began offering justifications if Democrats were successful.
“The only thing we (Republicans) lack is good public relations. We don’t seem to be able to get the message out that we have more people working than ever before,” he told reporters. “We have the best jobs numbers than ever before, and we’re not getting the message out and that’s because the press doesn’t want us to get the message out.”
But that doesn’t mean the bravado has completely disappeared.
At a rally Saturday night near Dayton, Ohio — where former Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is giving Republican Sen. Jon Husted a tough race — it was back.
“I think we’re going to have a big surprise, because they don’t know what’s going on,” he told his supporters. “Go out and vote. If you do that, we’re going to win, and we’re going to win big. And we’re going to shove this up their asses.”
Still, as he has repeatedly done about Ken Paxton, the Texas attorney general who is the Republican Party’s nominee for incumbent Sen. John Cornyn’s seat, Trump implored voters to put aside any negative feelings they might have about the party’s candidates in the Buckeye State.
“Even if you hate Jon Husted, even if you hate Vivek Ramaswamy,” he said, also referring to the party’s gubernatorial candidate. “You’re going to go out, you’re going to vote, and then you’re going to pull the trigger.”
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