President Donald Trump’s midterms campaign schedule has been lighter this year than his pace of hitting the road for Republican candidates during a 2018 midterm elections cycle that saw big Democratic gains.
The GOP campaigner in chief had, between Jan. 1, 2018 and July 7, 2018, held nine road shows to boost Republican congressional hopefuls, according to a CQ Roll Call analysis. This year, Trump has held five events to either help GOP candidates in tight reelection races, or in the case of events in Kentucky and Georgia, make his case to Republican primary voters against Rep. Thomas Massie and weigh in on the primary to replace Marjorie Taylor Greene, who resigned amid a spat with the Trump administration.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt has said several times this year that Trump will be an active campaigner heading into the summer and fall midterms homestretch. Susie Wiles, White House chief of staff, said late last year that her plan was for Trump to have a robust midterm campaign schedule.
“Typically in the midterms it’s not about who’s sitting at the White House. You localize the election, and you keep the federal officials out of it. We’re actually going to turn that on its head and put him on the ballot because so many of those low-propensity voters are Trump voters,” Wiles told “The Mom View,” an online talk show, in December.
