President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign should take heed of some of the “warning signs” from the midterm elections, Politico reports.
Although Politico notes that most presidents whose parties lose in the midterms usually win re-election, Trump has a number of things going against him. His favorability numbers are generally low, his job approval rating has never been higher than 50 percent, and several Democratic candidates won in states that propelled Trump’s Electoral College victory over Hillary Clinton, such as Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Michigan.
“This is now the party of Donald Trump. I read articles saying the Republican Party has merged with the Trump coalition — they have no choice. Trump voters own the Republican Party. That’s consolidated,” pollster John McLaughlin, who worked on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. “The bad part is they haven’t broadened. They haven’t gotten his job approval over 50 percent, like Reagan. We haven’t done that.”
Trump has argued that his not being up for re-election caused his supporters to skip this election, but GOP pollster Neil Newhouse, who worked for Mitt Romney’s 2012 campaign, said that “all the data indicated that voters were really pumped [in 2018] — that there was an excitement and energy that we didn’t really see in 2010 and 2012. What you see in this election is not only can Democrats turn their votes out, but Trump demonstrated an extraordinary ability to turn his votes out, too.”
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