Trump to focus on Senate gains after losing House, industrial states
President Donald Trump plans to quickly focus on his re-election campaign following Tuesday’s midterm elections, believing his brand of divisive and confrontational politics will mobilize his supporters and carry him to a second term.
Fresh off an 11-rally, six-day campaign swing through key conservative states, Trump has already begun talking about holding Make America Great Again rallies early next year, two of the president’s advisers said.
But it’s an open question whether Trump can re-create the coalition of voters and swing state victories that delivered him the White House — particularly on the same hard-line themes he relied on during the 2016 campaign and the first two years of his presidency. Trump didn’t campaign throughout the country ahead of the midterms, instead spending the bulk of his time in conservative territory where he remains popular while staying away from the suburban districts that were poised to hand Democrats control of the House on Tuesday.
Trump is preparing to portray Tuesday’s results in the best possible light, focusing on keeping control of the Senate and possibly in gubernatorial races that remained too close to call.
But Trump and Republicans also couldn’t flip Senate seats in Pennsylvania, Ohio and Wisconsin — key parts of the industrial Midwest that helped hand Trump the presidency in 2016 but where the GOP struggled to gain traction against strong Democratic incumbents this year.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, who handily won re-election Tuesday, said in his victory speech that leaning into popular liberal policies, as he did in his own race, would be the “blueprint for our nation in 2020.”
“You showed the country that by putting people first and by honoring the dignity of work, we can carry a state Donald Trump won by nearly 10 points,” Brown said. “And you showed that we do it without compromising on women’s rights or civil rights or LGBTQ rights.”
To deal with the expected loss of the House, the president’s political aides were encouraging allies to characterize the setback as the result of historical trends and retirements rather than as an indictment of Trump, according to a person in contact with the White House. The White House has prepared detailed numbers on past midterm cycles to back up its case, this person said.
“I don’t know what else the White House could have done about it,” said Marc Short, Trump’s former legislative affairs director. “You have a record number of retirements in the House. We knew that months ago.”
Midterm elections are not necessarily an indicator of how a president will fare in a bid for a second term — President Barack Obama was dealt major losses in his first midterms in 2010 and then handily won re-election two years later.
Trump has shown no inclination that he’ll moderate his tactics ahead of 2020. Instead, he’ll probably be emboldened by a potential Democratic House, filled with members who will be hungry to investigate his administration and possibly launch impeachment proceedings against him.