President Trump isn’t showing up to help MAGA loyalists and sycophants running for election ahead of the 2025 races slated to be decided on Nov. 4.
With many MAGA candidates trailing in the polls in state and city elections, Trump, 79, is making sure his image isn’t tarnished by backing losing candidates.
“I don’t think he likes to back candidates he knows are going to lose,” former Virginia GOP state delegate Chris Saxman told The Washington Post.
Apparently, the Republican candidates Trump feels are going to lose are New Jersey gubernatorial candidate Jack Ciattarelli and Virginia gubernatorial candidate Winsome Earle-Sears, as Trump has half-heartedly signaled support for them but has stopped short of unleashing his full arsenal of campaign succor.
For Ciattarelli, who trails New Jersey Democrat Mikie Sherrill by single digits according to the latest rounds of pre-election polling, Trump has offered an endorsement and a ten-minute tele-rally. Ciattarelli has given Trump his unequivocal support, saying in October that he gives Trump an “A” grade.
“I think the president is right about everything he’s doing,” Ciattarelli said at the time.
GOP strategists are split on whether more Trump would help or harm the 63-year-old former state assemblyman.
“If Trump showed up in the state on Sunday or Monday, Jack’s turnout Tuesday would be insane,” one GOP operative told the Post.
But Marc Short, former chief of staff to Trump’s first vice president Mike Pence, told the publication that Republicans in New Jersey and Virginia, two blue states, would want to distance themselves from the president.
The Daily Beast has reached out to Ciattarelli’s campaign for comment.
Trump has been even less helpful for Winsome Earle-Sears, who trails Governor Abigail Spanberger by 10 points. Earle-Sears said Republicans needed to “move on” from Trump while he was running in 2024.
Trump has slammed Earle-Sears’ opponent in the Virginia race, but as for endorsing the 61-year-old Republican, Trump has only said, “I would, yeah.” When he addressed the U.S. Navy in Virginia in October, Earle-Sears was in attendance and Trump didn’t mention her once.
This is in contrast to Virginia’s Republican Attorney General candidate, Jason Miyares, to whom Trump gave his “complete and total endorsement.” Miyares, 49, is running against Jay Jones, who is mired in scandal for 2022 text messages in which he wished violence on some state Republicans. Miyares is leading the polls in his race.
Rather than backing Republican candidates, Trump seems most interested in preemptively discrediting the results of California’s Prop 50 measure, a redistricting effort that would combat red state efforts to gerrymander their way to stuffing congress with Republican seats in 2026.
On Oct. 26, Trump posted, “Watch how totally dishonest the California Prop Vote is! Millions of Ballots being ‘shipped.’ GET SMART REPUBLICANS, BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE!!!”
Though he invoked his oft-repeated, baseless claim that mail-in ballots are dishonest with regards to the California election, he sang a different tune in his New Jersey tele-rally, urging voters with mail-in ballots to send them in.
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