President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance were back on the campaign trail on Thursday, heading into heavily Republican areas as the party tries to lift voter enthusiasm ahead of next month’s midterm elections.
Trump’s stops in Texas and Oklahoma mark the beginning of what he has called a 32-day campaign blitz leading up to Nov. 3.
The appearances put the Republican Party’s two highest-ranking officials in places where GOP candidates had once expected relatively easy races but are now facing much tougher contests.
Speaking in Lakeland, Florida, Vance tried to draw a simple contrast with Democrats, presenting Republicans as the party of common sense while accusing their opponents of moving too far to the left.
“I have the easiest job in the world,” Vance said in Lakeland, Florida. “I get to talk about how crazy the Democrats are.”
But the political backdrop is far less comfortable.
A new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research finds that only 17% of U.S. adults approve of Trump's handling of the cost of living. Just 26% approve of his handling of the economy overall, marking a new low.
That has added to Republican anxiety.
Party leaders have grown more pessimistic about their chances in an election that will decide control of Congress, while Trump has repeatedly brushed aside concerns over high costs and gas prices as his unpopular war in Iran continues.
Trump says the problem lies elsewhere.
According to the president, Republicans are simply not doing a good enough job of telling voters about what he believes his administration has achieved.
“I give us an A+ on the government, on economics, on everything,” Trump said Thursday, as he left the White House, while blaming the press for not covering the positive aspects of his administration.
A day earlier, he had made much the same argument.
“We’re doing an extremely poor job of promotion and an extremely great job of running the country."
Trump said he plans to travel widely in the coming weeks and urge Republican voters to treat the midterms as though his own name were on the ballot.
“I’m going out because nobody’s selling it,” Trump added.
Democrats say Republicans are worried
Republicans describe Trump’s travel schedule as a push to energise the party’s base at a crucial stage of the campaign.
Delanie Bomar, a spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, said in a statement that “the president is barnstorming the country, energizing our base, and supercharging Republican candidates in battleground districts and beyond.”
Democrats see something else.
The Democratic National Committee said Trump and Vance are "desperately trying to rally their base as the midterm elections approach and Republicans face defeat.”
“Donald Trump and JD Vance started a deadly and costly war with Iran that sent the economy spiraling and pushed prices even higher, and now, in the final stretch to the midterms, they’re desperately pleading with voters to 'give (them) another chance,'” said DNC deputy communications director Kendall Witmer.
In Oklahoma, Trump will campaign with Republican Mike Mazzei, who is running against Democratic state House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson in the race for governor.
The contest has drawn growing attention.
Democratic Governors Association spokesperson Kevin Donohoe said Trump’s campaign rally shows that Republicans “are in full-on panic mode.”
“This race continues to get more competitive, and national Republicans are right to be worried about Mazzei,” he said.
The event will be held on the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, putting Trump in the company of just a handful of U.S. presidents who have visited tribal nations while in office.
Before his evening stop in Oklahoma, Trump is touring a truck manufacturing facility in Texas.
Republicans are spending heavily there as they try to bolster state Attorney General Ken Paxton in a Senate race against Democratic state Rep. James Talarico. The contest has become highly competitive.
Paxton was planning to be with Trump at the official White House event Thursday in Denton, two campaign officials familiar with Paxton’s plans said on the condition of anonymity to discuss the candidate’s schedule before it was made public.
Vance also campaigns for GOP candidates
Trump is expected to move into more politically competitive areas in the days and weeks ahead.
But there are limits.
Republican officials do not plan to send him to places where they believe his presence could hurt their candidates, according to a person familiar with the party’s strategy who was not authorised to speak publicly and spoke on the condition of anonymity.
His stops in Oklahoma and Alabama are also designed to do more than help candidates in those states.
Republican officials have noted that Durant is close to the Dallas and Fort Worth media market, meaning Trump’s message will also reach voters in Texas. He is expected to talk about Paxton even while speaking across the state line.
Friday’s stop in Mobile, Alabama, follows the same logic.
Trump is expected to campaign for Sen. Tommy Tuberville as he runs for Alabama governor, while also trying to shore up Republican support in Florida’s nearby panhandle for Rep. Byron Donalds.
Donalds is running for Florida governor against David Jolly, the Republican-turned-independent who is now running as a Democrat.
Florida is still heavily Republican, but the campaign has not been entirely smooth. Voter concerns over affordability and artificial intelligence data centers have become central issues.
While Trump was campaigning in Texas and Oklahoma, Vance was in central Florida supporting Donalds.
A day earlier, the vice president had been in Texas.
There, he rallied with Republican candidate Eric Flores, who is in a tight U.S. House race in south Texas.
Speaking in Harlingen, Texas, on Wednesday, Vance acknowledged broader frustration over high prices but sought to shift responsibility away from Trump and Republicans.
“I know that there are people out there who are frustrated by the pace of progress,” he said, but "we have spent every single day fighting for you, digging ourselves out of the hole that Joe Biden left us in.”
Trump’s schedule remains packed.
He will also campaign on Saturday in Vandalia, Ohio, and on Monday in Grand Island, Nebraska.
Near-daily campaigning ahead
The pace is expected to intensify as Nov. 3 gets closer.
At a meeting on Capitol Hill this week, White House chief of staff Susie Wiles privately told Republican senators that Trump would be campaigning on a near-daily basis ahead of the midterms.
Wiles showed lawmakers the president’s upcoming travel schedule. Attendees described it as extensive, with stops planned across the country on almost every day.
West Virginia Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said White House officials are “acknowledging the headwinds” but that “they have a strategy, and we have a strategy,” including money that the president’s operation will continue to deploy.
She also defended the decision to send Trump into traditionally conservative territory.
The argument is straightforward: Trump does not have to be physically present everywhere to have an impact.
“He can get more of his voters out, that are going to be our voters, than anybody else,” Capito said.
With the midterms just over a month away, Republicans are leaning heavily on Trump to bring their voters out.
Whether that is enough remains to be seen. But the intensity of his campaign schedule shows just how much tougher the political landscape has become in races that once looked far more comfortable for the GOP.
