Staring down his lowest approval numbers at any point in office, President Donald Trump is hitting the road for the next month, he says, in hopes of boosting Republican turnout in the midterm elections.
“They like to say, ‘Oh, nobody wants him.’ Well, everybody that has me wins,” Trump told a crowd of supporters at the White House on Wednesday.
Trump touted achievements but said “nobody knows it” because his White House has struggled with “public relations.”
“That’s why I’m doing it myself,” Trump said of what he and his advisers are billing as a month of marathon travel. “We’re doing an extremely poor job of promotion and an extremely great job of running the country.”
But Trump’s low standing with voters limits the places he can most effectively campaign. His approval rating is at 38 percent, according to an average of multiple recent polls compiled by analyst Nate Silver. His standing has dipped lower than any president before a midterm election in more than three decades.
The president is launching his October blitz of campaign travel with a stop in a curious location: Oklahoma, one of the country’s reddest states, and one that’s lacking the kind of fiercely competitive races that are posing difficulty for Republicans elsewhere.
The decision to go to such friendly territory highlights one aspect of Trump’s role in the party’s midterm operation: He believes he is not only the administration’s best spokesperson but also should be at the center of the planning, advisers say, and he has been actively involved in shaping advertisements, talking points and even the travel itinerary.
At times, advisers have recommended visiting a particular location, and Trump has countered with his own suggestion of where to go. Trump “wants to be a part of the conversation” about midterm campaign planning, said a senior White House official who has been part of the conversations. The official, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount internal campaign discussions.
In the case of his Oklahoma trip, Trump wanted to go as a show of friendship for the Republican gubernatorial nominee, Mike Mazzei, who asked Trump to visit the state, according to two of Trump’s advisers. Trump won all 77 counties in Oklahoma in each election, and Mazzei is not seen as being in danger of losing the general election. Departing the White House on Thursday, Trump said he was going to Oklahoma “to thank them” for supporting him.
Trump is scheduled to average five to seven rallies a week through October, two other advisers said, at some points holding a rally every day of the week, and other weeks stacking multiple rallies in a single day, as he did near the end of the 2024 campaign. The advisers both cautioned that final plans are still being worked out and can shift. Advisers for Trump have said for months he would pick up his domestic travel this year, though the president did not keep up the pace once promised.
From Oklahoma, Trump is scheduled to travel Friday to Alabama — another solidly red state, also with an ally running in an open-seat governor’s race — and then on Saturday to Ohio, a state that has trended toward Republicans over the last decade, but where the GOP is now worried about holding on to Senate and governor’s seats. Trump’s rally in Mobile, Alabama, could also boost Republicans in a closer-than-expected House race in a nearby district, advisers note.
On Monday, Trump will start the week with a rally in Nebraska, a state he won by more than 20 percentage points in 2024, but where the Republican incumbent senator is also locked in a reelection fight that’s too close for comfort.
After those initial stops, most of Trump’s rallies will be held in more competitive states, according to a person with knowledge of Trump’s schedule. Officials are making arrangements for him to visit Alaska, where the Republican senator is in a close reelection race, among other battlegrounds.
Trump may also hold another event in South Carolina, the White House official said. He rallied in the heavily Republican state in August to help put Sen. Darline Graham over the finish line in a tight special primary election runoff. Graham, the sister of the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, is only narrowly ahead of her Democratic challenger, according to some polls.
There may be some competitive states that Trump ultimately doesn’t visit, a Trump adviser said, depending on “the political climate” over the next month. The official noted that campaign strategy can be responsive to changing circumstances.
Trump on Wednesday compared his upcoming schedule to the pace he kept ahead of the 2020 and 2024 elections when he was on the ballot. Neither of those were midterm elections, but Trump said he is “going to do that again.”
“I’m going to be making a tour,” Trump said, likening his October swing to the months before the 2024 election, which he said involved “not taking any days off,” putting down his golf habit and working “literally 20 hours a day.”
His commitment to “fight for Republicans” by holding rallies in the past has paid off, he said — mentioning that the GOP even managed to pick up seats in 2020, an election Trump lost. But in 2018, when Trump held more than 20 rallies in the month before the midterms — including two to three a day in the week leading up to Election Day — Democrats gained 40 House seats and took control of the chamber, though Republicans kept the Senate and picked up two seats.
The overall strategy remains to aim for appearances that can boost turnout from solid Republicans — even if the rallies aren’t all in the most competitive House districts.
Democrats and some Republican strategists have raised eyebrows lately at Trump and Vice President JD Vance for making the rounds in heavily Republican territory. Vance in recent weeks has visited a solid-red part of Iowa and made a campaign stop in Kansas, among other locations.
“Yes, the president is going to juice our voters,” said one official involved in planning the rallies. “Why is that somehow a bad thing?”
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