Trump visits risky for Republicans
Ex-president may spur Democratic reaction; goal of trip to Texas is firing up GOP voters
No one is more powerful than former President Donald Trump when it comes to turning out Republican voters in Texas, as evidenced by his two record-shattering campaigns for the White House.
Yet, at the same time, there is no one more dangerous to Republican prospects in November than the former president, who was near Corpus Christi on Saturday night for one of his free Make America Great Again rallies before thousands of adoring supporters.
With early voting starting Monday, Trump’s mission was to get MAGA Republicans fired up to vote.
“This November 8, the MAGA movement is going to deliver yet another Texas-sized landslide,” Trump told the crowd.
He said the only way to stop Democrats from ruining the American dream is to “go out and vote up and down the slate for Republicans.”
But political experts warn that he fires up Democrats, too, and risks making the election about himself instead of a referendum on President Joe Biden’s low approval ratings in Texas. Midterm elections are historically bad for the sitting president’s party. Trump is risking that advantage by making himself the center of the conversation by holding rallies in places with potentially close races, they say.
“This is what Trump does wherever he goes, even if it’s in deep red territory,” said Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia. “He thrills Republicans and motivates them to vote. And he infuriates and disgusts Democrats and motivates them to vote.”
There is no doubt Trump drives GOP turnout, but Republican political strategist Brandon Scholz said it’s best to keep him in solidly red areas where he’s less of a threat to produce a Democratic backlash in blue areas or even toss-up regions.
“The last thing I need is to have Trump fire up the Democratic base in a close election,”
Scholz said.
Scholz, who is based in Wisconsin, said he’s convinced Trump fired up Democrats and cost the GOP dearly in that state. He said that with more close races this year, he advises Republicans to keep Trump away.
But in Texas, Republicans were disregarding that type of advice, planting Trump in Robstown in Nueces County, which has been a swing county over the last few election cycles. While Trump carried the county in 2020 with almost 51 percent of the vote, it is also a county that Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke won in 2018 with 50 percent of the vote over U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz.
Gov. Greg Abbott and his campaign appear to have had little say about where Trump decided to speak. Abbott senior campaign adviser Dave Carney said they heard about Trump coming but that he didn’t think their input was solicited. He added that “anytime the president can travel and rile up the base and get people fired up to turn out, it’s a good thing.”
Still, Abbott was to be 1,000 miles away when Trump touched down in Corpus Christi.
“I welcome President Trump back to Texas, though I won’t be able to welcome him personally since I will be out-of-state for a pre-planned fundraising trip to Florida,” Abbott said in a statement earlier in the week.
‘Toxic for a lot of voters’
Sabato says he’s not surprised Abbott would skip the event so close to Election Day. It’s one thing to attend a rally with Trump during the primary, but this close to the election there is no telling what he might talk about that a campaign has to answer for, particularly among suburban voters who have been repelled by Trump.
Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and Attorney General Ken Paxton were to be at the rally, according to a statement from Trump. Both are in tight re-election races, according to what limited public polling has been released. Patrick is running against Kingwood Democrat Mike Collier, and Paxton is being challenged by Brownsville Democrat Rochelle Garza.
Patrick was Trump’s campaign chairman in Texas during both his campaigns, and Paxton was at Trump’s Jan. 6, 2021, rally in Washington, D.C., in the morning before the U.S. Capitol was attacked. Paxton also tried to get the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn election results in other states on Trump’s behalf.
What makes Trump so risky is his impact on independent voters, said John Bolton, who was Trump’s former national security adviser.
In the summer, a political action committee Bolton runs put out a poll of key battleground states that showed that among independents, 38 percent had a favorable view of Trump, and 48 percent had an unfavorable view of him. Bolton said Republicans need to keep their brand away from Trump’s, especially in places where independents could decide the races.
“I think he’s toxic for a lot of voters that you need in a competitive race,” Bolton said.
Trump’s poll numbers are even worse in Texas, according to the latest Quinnipiac University poll released last month. In that poll of 1,327 likely Texas voters, 44 percent had a favorable view of Trump and 55 percent had an unfavorable view.
Among independents, just 38 percent had a favorable view of him.
Trump is also not well-received by either Hispanic voters or women. In both cases, just 38 percent had a favorable view of Trump, the Quinnipiac survey found.
Still, with Trump at the top of the ticket, Republicans set records for getting voters to the polls in 2016 and in the 2018 midterm election. In 2016, Trump won almost 4.7 million votes in Texas, a record. Four years later, he shattered that record, winning 5.9 million votes as he carried the state by 6 percentage points over Biden.
However, Trump has also pushed Democrats to record turnout. Biden won 5.3 million votes in Texas in 2020, more than any Democrat in Texas history. In other states, Democratic voter turnout was so high it cost Republicans races, as it did in previously red Georgia, where both U.S. Senate seats flipped from Republican to Democratic control.
“You can’t ignore the fact that he is the reason why Republicans lost both the U.S. House and the Senate — and of course, the presidency,” Sabato said.
Scholz, the GOP political strategist, said the only good reason to bring in Trump this late in the campaign would be as a Hail Mary if the GOP is struggling to get voters to the polls. But Scholz said that’s a warning sign that something has gone terribly wrong.
“If you don’t have the Trump voters now — less than three weeks out — to me, you’re just too late.”