According to a report in the Washington Post, President Donald Trump plans to hit the 2018 campaign trail hard for GOP candidates despite the fact that the last few candidates he has endorsed failed at the polls after he gave them the nod.
Coming hot on the heels of the phenomenal collapse of accused sexual assaulter Roy Moore for a Senate seat representing Alabama, Trump is reportedly looking forward to hitting the campaign trail in support of Republicans candidates across the country -- and that has some GOP consultants nervous.
“For the president, this isn’t about adulation and cheering crowds,” claimed White House political director Bill Stepien. “This is about electing and reelecting Republicans.”
But after the failure of Moore in Alabama and the gut-wrenching loss by Republican Ed Gillespie for the governorship of Virginia, after both being endorsed by Trump, Republicans are worried and Democrats are gleeful.
“He absolutely is turbocharging the opposition. My guess is most of the people running for office in 2018 are not going to want to cleave too closely to him,” explained former president Barack Obama’s chief strategist, David Axelrod. “He torques up both sides, but he torques up the opposition more. He is the greatest organizing tool that Democrats could have.”
According to Jared Leopold of the Democratic Governors’ Association: "We look forward to everything that comes out of the president’s iPhone.”
Among the worries of GOP consultants is Trump's habit of going off-script and his volatility, with the Post noting, "The president frequently wanders off topic at rallies and often prefers to talk about himself, sometimes generating new controversies and making the candidate a sideshow at best."
Stepien defended the value of a presidential appearance saying, "To say the president has shaky political standing, I’d say the pollsters, the experts, the pundits have never figured out how to poll this guy. Look at public polling — we have our own numbers that I trust because the experts don’t know how to poll him. They never have.”
A pollster who worked for Obama agreed that Trump can increase turn-out -- but not just among conservatives.
“They are mixing a very risky cocktail, where they are alienating suburban voters at the same time that they are motivating progressives and people of color,” said Joel Benenson, reflecting on the recent election in Virginia and Alabama where Trumpism didn't save the day for GOP candidates.