Trump seems pretty sore over Republicans not wanting to campaign with him

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It has become abundantly clear that Republicans in tough races aren’t especially eager to campaign with President Donald Trump ahead of the midterm election.

Few of them showed up to Trump’s midterm convention last month. His travel schedule since then has rather curiously featured lower-tier states like Alabama, Oklahoma and New York and only a handful of real battleground races. And even in Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott is skipping Trump’s upcoming rally (citing scheduling conflicts, of course).

Trump increasingly appears rather sensitive about this dynamic — which makes sense, given he’s latched onto the theory that he alone can push his party to victory in less than four weeks, despite his low approval numbers.

He went on a tear about his rallies on Tuesday, bringing it up at least five separate times.

“By the way, I’m going around doing rallies. The Republican Party is starting to go right through the roof,” he said at a non-campaign event in Baltimore. “Somebody said today, ‘I wonder why?’ Well, I started — I had to get out. I had to do it.”

(There is no evidence Trump’s rallies are actually helping, which we’ll get to.)

He posted on social media that his “Rally crowds and enthusiasm are unbelievable!” He added: “ We are flipping races all over the place . … It’s all happening!”

In a separate post, he said simply: “ MY RALLIES ARE SAVING THE REPUBLICAN PARTY, AGAIN!!! ”

In gaggles with reporters, he returned to the topic even when he wasn’t asked about it, claiming at one point that “the rallies have changed things around.” When asked about leaked audio of Texas Senate candidate Ken Paxton saying DC was controlling his campaign, Trump responded that Paxton was “doing much better” since Trump started doing rallies a few days ago.

And when a reporter asked Monday about campaigning in Michigan, Trump said he would. When asked about campaigning in Maine, he suggested he would go there, too.

“I don’t know about Maine,” Trump said. “I think we’re going to Maine, too.”

But GOP Sen. Susan Collins has said repeatedly — including at a debate Tuesday night — that she didn’t expect Trump to come to Maine. “That’s just not going to happen,” Collins said in June .

This is also an uneasy question in Iowa, where three House Republicans recently broke from Trump somewhat on the Iran war. And Senate candidate Rep. Ashley Hinson seems to want some distance from Trump.

When those lawmakers were at a White House event last week, Trump seemed to put them on the spot, bringing up plans for more campaign events with him.

“I’m going to come to Iowa,” Trump said, adding: “I will say that we’re going to do a great rally, and we’ll all be there together. We have to get you all elected.”

Hinson responded: “We’ll save you a good Iowa pork chop, sir.”

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And back in early September, when it became clear many Republicans in marquee races were skipping the president’s Trump-centric midterm convention, the president claimed it was for reasons beside his historically low poll numbers.

“Everybody wants to come,” Trump maintained, adding: “The reason that some people are not coming is because we don’t have room for 500 politicians.”

He also said back then that he would be all over the country, campaigning for every Republican in the most competitive races.

“I’m going to go to every one of those 35 places, and we’re going to see if we can get everyone elected,” he said September 2. He repeated the same claim at the convention a week later: “I’m gonna go to every one of them, about 35. In a couple of cases, I’ll go twice.”

That doesn’t appear to be happening anymore — at least not yet. With less than four weeks to go, Trump has been to only a handful of true battleground areas.

And despite Trump’s claim that he’s such an asset, it appears that his “Trump-a-palooza” midterm convention backfired on Republicans. Polls show the generic ballot, a key measure of the midterm, took a turn in Democrats’ favor at almost that precise moment.

Of course, Trump simply can’t allow for this perception that Republicans don’t want to campaign with him and that he’s an electoral burden.

His ability to rally the base at raucous, large-scale events has been a central part of his political brand, yet he’s confronting a reality where many Republicans seem to view them as net-negatives.

The lack of Republicans pining to campaign with him also calls into question his domination of his party, which he has been cultivating for a decade and is central to his hold on what political capital he has left. If he truly lost the base and his ability to make Republicans do what he wants, he wouldn’t have much left.

In the four-week span left before the election, it could become abundantly clear just how many Republicans think Trump is an albatross and a lame duck.

So he’s over-compensating for that — badly.

Kent Nishimura/AFP/Getty Images

很明显，在选情胶着的共和党人并不特别热衷于在中期选举前与唐纳德·特朗普总统一起竞选。

上个月，特朗普的中期选举大会几乎无人到场。此后，他的行程安排颇为蹊跷，主要集中在阿拉巴马州、俄克拉荷马州和纽约州等实力较弱的州，而真正的摇摆州却寥寥无几。甚至在德克萨斯州，州长格雷格·阿博特也缺席了特朗普即将举行的竞选集会（当然，理由是日程冲突）。

特朗普似乎越来越对这种动态感到相当敏感——考虑到他坚信自己可以凭借一己之力在不到四周的时间内带领他的政党赢得胜利，尽管他的支持率很低，这也就不足为奇了。

周二，他大谈特谈自己的集会，至少五次提及此事。

“顺便说一句，我正在四处参加集会。共和党现在势头正猛，”他在巴尔的摩的一场非竞选活动上说道。“今天有人问，‘我想知道为什么？’好吧，我开始这么做——我必须站出来。我必须这么做。”

（目前没有证据表明特朗普的集会真的有帮助，我们稍后会谈到这一点。）

他在社交媒体上发帖称：“集会现场的观众和热情简直难以置信！”他还补充道：“我们到处都在扭转比赛局势……一切都在发生！”

他在另一篇帖子中简单地写道：“我的集会再次拯救了共和党！！！”

在与记者们的多次交谈中，即使没有被问及此事，他也会再次提及，并一度声称“集会改变了局面”。当被问及德克萨斯州参议员候选人肯·帕克斯顿声称华盛顿特区控制其竞选活动的泄露录音时，特朗普回应说，自从他几天前开始举行集会以来，帕克斯顿的情况“好多了”。

周一，当记者问及是否会在密歇根州进行竞选活动时，特朗普表示他会去。当被问及是否会在缅因州进行竞选活动时，他也暗示可能会去那里。

“我不知道缅因州的情况，”特朗普说。“我想我们也会去缅因州。”

但共和党参议员苏珊·柯林斯多次表示——包括在周二晚上的辩论中——她不认为特朗普会来缅因州。“这根本不可能发生，”柯林斯在六月份说道。

在爱荷华州，这也是个棘手的问题，因为三位共和党众议员最近在伊朗战争问题上与特朗普的立场有所分歧。而参议员候选人、众议员阿什利·欣森似乎也想与特朗普保持距离。

上周，当这些议员出席白宫活动时，特朗普似乎让他们感到尴尬，提出了与他一起参加更多竞选活动的计划。

“我要去爱荷华州，”特朗普说，“我要说的是，我们将举行一场盛大的集会，我们都会到场。我们必须让你们都当选。”

欣森回答说：“先生，我们会给您留一块上好的爱荷华猪排。”

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早在 9 月初，当许多共和党候选人在重要竞选中缺席以特朗普为中心的总统中期选举大会时，总统声称这并非出于他历史性低迷的民调支持率之外的原因。

“每个人都想来，”特朗普坚持说，“有些人没来的原因是，我们没有足够的空间容纳500名政客。”

他当时还表示，他将奔赴全国各地，为竞争最激烈的每一位共和党候选人助选。

“我要去那35个地方，看看能不能让每个人都当选，”他在9月2日说道。一周后，他在大会上再次重申了同样的说法：“我要去每一个地方，大约35个。有些地方我会去两次。”

这种情况似乎已经不再发生了——至少目前还没有。距离大选不到四周，特朗普只去过少数几个真正的摇摆州。

尽管特朗普声称自己是共和党的一大助力，但他的“特朗普狂欢”式中期选举大会似乎对共和党产生了反作用。民调显示，作为中期选举关键指标的普选票，几乎就在同一时刻开始向民主党倾斜。

当然，特朗普绝对不能容忍共和党人认为他们不想和他一起竞选，认为他是选举的负担。

他能够在喧闹的大型活动中鼓舞支持者，这已成为他政治品牌的核心部分，但他面临的现实是，许多共和党人似乎认为这些活动弊大于利。

共和党人中缺乏渴望与他并肩作战的人士，也让人质疑他对本党的掌控力。他苦心经营了十年之久，而这种掌控力是他仅存的政治资本的核心。如果他真的失去了基本盘，失去了让共和党人听命于他的能力，那么他将所剩无几。

在距离大选还剩四周的时间里，共和党人究竟有多少人认为特朗普是个累赘和跛脚鸭，可能会变得非常清楚。

所以他矫枉过正了——而且矫枉过正了。