Republicans mystified by Trump's refusal to do the one thing that will get him re-elected

President Donald Trump's re-election campaign is focusing their efforts, with fewer than 100 days before the election, on keeping his Republican base from cracking.

The strategy is confounding other Republicans, who don't understand why the president isn't working to expand his coalition and instead prioritizing his conservative base, reported The Daily Beast.

“The president has tremendous power in what to talk about, and he has kinda gotten off-track, in talking about what the media wants him to talk about,” said GOP operative Barry Bennett, who served as a senior Trump adviser in 2016. “He should be tweeting pictures of people going back to work … Let’s see some pictures of those people … The media is not going to help him tell the good news. He’s got to do it himself, and he should use his platform for that.”

Instead, the president continues airing his personal grievances, such as a single tweet attacking Ronald Reagan's legacy, former House Speaker Paul Ryan and Fox News.

“I thought, ‘Damn, he jammed a lot in there in one broadside,’” one GOP strategist told The Beast. “The base is the piece he can control the most, but there are times where he sees his base as a larger portion of the Republican voting bloc than it is. There are a lot of gettable Republicans outside of the cultural issues that he plays on.”

Trump and his campaign remain uninterested in engaging the twin crises -- the coronavirus pandemic and racial unrest -- engulfing the nation, and GOP senators are growing concerned that his inaction will drag down their majority.

“To the extent these [Senate] races remain a presidential referendum by proxy, Republicans carry all of Trump’s baggage in the eyes of his haters without necessarily generating the same enthusiasm or recognition among his supporters,” said Liam Donovan, a former aide at the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “Unless and until it becomes a choice between the candidates — or a check on full Democratic control — the Senate majority will only go as far as the president’s performance can carry it.”