Trump Will Reportedly Spend Millions Making the Midterms a Referendum on His Record

AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite

President Donald Trump is reportedly about to make a bold gamble by making November’s midterm elections a referendum on his performance.

Republicans hold a narrow seven-seat majority in the House and control the Senate 53-47. Control of both chambers is very much up in the air in November.

On Tuesday evening, The Atlantic reported that early this month, Trump met with his political advisers in the Oval Office to discuss how to allocate the $400 million his MAGA Inc. super PAC has on hand with less than three months to go before the elections. Given that the president’s approval rating is stuck in the low 30s, the publication noted that Republican strategists are concerned that Trump will be a drag on GOP candidates.

“When the issues that you typically campaign on don’t move voters—or voters are pissed off at you about those issues—the question becomes: What do you campaign on?” a person familiar with the meeting told The Atlantic. The outlet reported that Trump’s advisers told him his low approval rating is a messaging issue and that Americans are not aware of his accomplishments. The advisers pointed to repeated stock market highs, fewer fentanyl deaths, and a “sealed” border with Mexico.

In response, Trump concluded that his MAGA Inc. super PAC will focus on himself, according to three people familiar with the meeting:

The president ordered a series of television advertisements about his own record that will serve as a backdrop to the hundreds of individual House and Senate contests. Trump wanted what one person described to us as “environmental lift” ads—commercials that would focus on nationalizing the midterms broadly around his victories—and he suggested that the ad makers mine his own on-camera statements as building blocks. “Go look at the clips,” the president told his team, according to this person. “I cite accomplishments all the time.”

One person familiar with the discussions said that the ad blitz will arrive in short order.

“We are going to unload the guns on both chambers real soon,” the person said. Meanwhile, another added that Trump is essentially going to be on the ballot.

“I think everybody does understand that the president and his agenda are on the ballot to some degree,” that person said.

Historically, the incumbent president’s party loses seats in midterm elections. Since World War II, the only two midterm years in which the incumbent president’s party gained seats in the House were 1998 and 2002.

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