Several congressional Republicans agree with Donald Trump that their party needs to overhaul its economic sales pitch ahead of November’s midterm elections as the president is expected to hit the campaign trail Thursday in Georgia.
Trump on Monday evening confirmed that his visit to Rome in the state’s northwest would be campaign-heavy. The 14th District is hosting a special election next month to elect a successor to former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who resigned in January after a public falling-out with the president.
“We have a lot of people that want to take Marjorie ‘Traitor’ Greene’s place,” he told reporters traveling with him on Air Force One, using a derogatory nickname for his onetime ally. “And they say whoever I endorse is going to win.” Trump has already thrown his support behind local prosecutor Clay Fuller in the crowded primary field.
The president reportedly is slated to deliver remarks about his economic policies and still-high prices. It would be his first stop in the Peach State since Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard led a federal search of an elections facility in Fulton County, south of Atlanta. False claims about vote fraud in the 2020 election often make up a portion of Trump’s public remarks.
The president offered a preview of his expected message in Georgia aboard the executive jet as he returned from a three-day Presidents Day weekend in South Florida.
“Low inflation, very low inflation. Prices are down, way down. Gasoline is less than $2 in many places [per] gallon, which nobody expected to see. But I did because we’re going by the initial expression of ‘Drill, baby, drill.’ And prices are coming down very strongly. And as goes gasoline and oil and gas, so goes the rest of other products that were high because of [Joe] Biden,” he added.
So far, however, polling shows voters haven’t come around to Trump’s economic outlook, with frustrations over high prices persisting. As of Tuesday afternoon, a RealClearPolitics average of recent surveys put disapproval over Trump’s handling of the economy at 55.2 percent, with 40.4 percent approving.
In an interview with NBC News that aired on Feb. 4, the often-stubborn Trump declared, “I don’t believe the polls.” And in an interview last week with economic adviser-turned-Fox Business host Larry Kudlow, Trump said the cure for his and Republicans’ low economic poll numbers was all about communication.
“If we can get the word out, we should win. The problem is that, historically … the president’s won, in 50 years, two times,” he said of voters’ propensity to punish the president’s party two years after electing him. “I don’t know what that is. There’s something down, deep, psychological.”
“We’re gonna change that, I hope,” Trump added. “We have the hottest country in the world. I guess I have to sell that because we should win in a landslide, and we’ll do everything we can to do it.”
‘Real concern’
In separate interviews last week, several Republican lawmakers concurred with Trump that the party needed to refine its message on the economy and stubbornly high prices as the midterm campaign picks up steam.
“I agree with the president that I think Republicans could do a better job of telling the story,” said South Dakota Rep. Dusty Johnson, a gubernatorial candidate in the Mount Rushmore State. “It’s sometimes easy for all of us to get caught up in the distraction of the day.
“It does seem like focusing on the huge successes of securing the border, cutting mandatory spending, the deregulation efforts that are going to drive down costs,” Johnson said Thursday. “Those are winners. … When we’re talking about other things, we probably aren’t being as good of politicians as we should be.”
Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, who faces a tough reelection fight against a Trump-endorsed primary opponent, said high prices are on voters’ minds across the Pelican State.
“When I’m having a town hall in St. James Parish … and I say, ‘Prices have gone up faster than their salaries have,’ heads nod. Man, people just feel it,” Cassidy said Thursday. “And when I kind of make a joke, but not really, about money problems causing marriages to be strained, there is kind of a rustling in the seat.
“I think the feeling on the ground is that, still, prices are rising faster than their wages — and, by the way, if you include property and casualty insurance,” he added, “that’s just a real concern for people.”
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