GARDEN CITY, N.Y. — With the midterm elections 81 days away, President Donald Trump traveled to Long Island on Friday to tout declining crime statistics with longshot Republican gubernatorial candidate Bruce Blakeman.
Before a crowd that included firefighters, paramedics, police officers and other first responders, Trump appeared more enthusiastic about Blakeman than he has with most other candidates at political rallies this year, frequently mentioning him throughout his speech and celebrating his work as the county executive of New York’s suburban Nassau County.
The rally highlighted the uncertainty about what role Trump will play in the midterm election campaign as he grapples with approval numbers significantly worse than nearly every other modern president at this point in their tenures and growing backlash within his own party over the unpopular Iran war.
Despite his poor poll standing, Republican officials involved in midterm strategy maintain that a Trump visit to a swing district remains a winning strategy for them. Trump’s visits can drive turnout of his conservative base, a worry for the party this fall.
But GOP officials concede they’re uncertain how much campaigning Trump really will engage in and how much of it will be aimed at the toughest electoral battlegrounds.
Blakeman, for example, sits well behind New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in pre-election polls and faces a difficult task in a heavily Democratic state. The two swing districts in the Long Island suburbs both have Democratic incumbents who are favored for reelection.
Nonetheless, Trump spoke for more than an hour before heading for a weekend visit to his Bedminster golf resort, nearby in New Jersey. He previewed how he plans to attack the Democrats as extremists who would lead the country into squalor and communism if elected in the midterms.
“I guess it’s good because Bruce — how the hell can you lose to that?” Trump said. “If you lose, you’re going to be ashamed for the rest of your life.”
As Trump talked up Blakeman, the crowd of people wearing MAGA hats shouted “Bruuuuce,” as if they were at Bruce Springsteen concert.
Todd Blanche, who was confirmed as attorney general this week, and FBI Director Kash Patel also spoke positively of Blakeman, a highly unusual display of the Trump administration’s willingness to mix partisan politics and government business. The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in certain partisan activities while on the job, and previous attorneys general and FBI directors have avoided overtly political activities.
Blakeman has adopted many of Trump’s political tactics but so far has cautiously navigated his relationship with a president who is deeply unpopular in his native state. A recent Siena Research Institute poll reported that 60 percent of New Yorkers disapprove of Trump’s performance in office.
Trump has a years-long relationship with Blakeman, and as a native New Yorker, is uniquely connected to the state he seeks to represent. It remains to be seen if the president will go to the same lengths for other vulnerable Republicans.
“A lot of times I’m with people, and I’m sort of not very sure,” Trump said as Blakeman left the stage. “I’m sure this one’s going to be great.”
Trump devoted much of the speech to painting the Democratic Party as communists, following the primary victories of several candidates with ties to the Democratic Socialists of America.
“When they continue their war on police and their destruction of the rule of law, the communists want to turn America into a Third World country, into a hellhole of crime and filth,” the president said in front of a banner that said “Making America Safe Again.”
But he largely downplayed the issue that pollsters say is dominating voters’ minds this election: rising prices. As he has in past speeches, he dismissed “affordability” as a hoax invented by the Democrats.
He also argued that Americans should be willing to accept rising gas prices, which have been stuck at an average price of more than $4 per gallon for the first time this late in the year.
“For you to pay a tiny little bit more for your gasoline … just remember, you’re doing it so that a very evil country cannot have” a nuclear weapon, he said, referring to Iran. “You just have to remember that what we’re doing is a great service for the world, not only for ourselves, for the world,” Trump said.
He also said, chuckling, that the war was going so well that he planned to declare the Strait of Hormuz as U.S. territory.
High gas prices and the unpopularity of the Iran war are factors that could weigh on GOP turnout this fall, analysts say. Polls show Republicans are far less excited than Democrats to vote in the midterms. A Washington Post-Ipsos poll released last month found Democrats have a 10-percentage-point advantage over Republicans among voters who say they are absolutely certain to vote in November.
There is a heightened risk for Republicans this cycle because Trump won in 2024 specifically by tapping into voters who don’t routinely turn out for elections. Party operatives believe many of them are less likely to show up when Trump’s name is not on the ballot.
“You need MAGA voters — those who vote Trump but not downballot — to show up in 2026,” said Jesse Hunt, a Republican operative who worked at the National Republican Congressional Committee in 2018, the midterm election during Trump’s first term. “Trump voters not backing downballot candidates or feeling motivated to show up is a very big issue.”
Trump acknowledged he was unsure how the party would fare without him on the ballot.
“If I [am not running], will those people go out and vote? And that’s the one thing I can’t do,” Trump said in an interview with Punchbowl News last week.
Vulnerable GOP campaigns in need of support are also anxiously awaiting funds from MAGA Inc., a Trump-allied super PAC, which has raised $400 million. Trump told Punchbowl that he planned to spend on the midterms, but the PAC has not shared details about its plans.
“While MAGA Inc. is committed to retaining and building the GOP majorities in the House and Senate, we are not in the habit of sharing our battle plans with the opposition through their co-conspirators in the legacy media,” said Alex Pfeiffer, spokesman for MAGA Inc.
In interviews, several GOP campaign officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity to avoid jeopardizing ties with the White House, say that while they welcome Trump’s participation, they remain unsure exactly how often he will travel to hold campaign events before the midterms. They have been encouraged by his recent appearances in Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Ohio — though the latter was for the Patriot Games and not to rally for any particular embattled candidates there.
One of the GOP officials pointed to Trump’s recent travel to Nevada, a swing state, where he appeared last week with Gov. Joe Lombardo, and also noted his visit to Rep. Mike Lawler’s (R-New York) vulnerable lower Hudson Valley district, which Kamala Harris won in 2024.
A White House official told The Washington Post earlier this month that Trump will travel at least weekly for campaign events, starting after the party’s midterm convention in early September.
Trump’s schedule would appear to call that into question, however — his first trip immediately after the midterm convention is scheduled to be to Ireland, where the president is expected to attend the Irish Open at his golf course in Doonbeg and meet with Irish officials.
“President Trump is the unequivocal leader of the Republican party who is committed to maintaining Republicans’ majority in Congress,” White House spokeswoman Olivia Wales said in a statement. “President Trump will continue to draw a sharp contrast with his commonsense agenda and the radical Democrats in Congress.”
Wales said the president planned to attack Democrats’ record on immigration, crime and taxes — similar to the themes of his 2024 campaign.
White House officials told The Post late last year that Trump would embark on near-weekly domestic trips starting in January in an effort to refocus on affordability and other top concerns of voters. But the president did not maintain that pace for much of the year, and his attention quickly turned to the Iran war, which he launched in late-February.
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