His approval numbers are underwater and his polarizing presidency is endangering dozens of House Republicans. But when it comes to motivating GOP voters, nobody is more effective than President Donald Trump.
After watching him successfully intercede in primary after primary this summer, Republican candidates now face an agonizing general-election dilemma: They need Trump’s help mobilizing conservative voters but worry that embracing the president might destroy their standing with independents in the process.
“His support among the Republican base brings a level of intensity that is unrivaled, at least in recent history,” said Ken Spain, a former top official at the National Republican Congressional Committee. “That’s the conundrum that many Republican candidates are facing across the country: how do you captivate and mobilize the Republican base while trying to win over independent voters? So far, that has been a very difficult balancing act.”
Trump’s ability to move GOP votes when his name isn’t on the ballot was once in doubt. But this summer changed that, according to strategists, pollsters and donors who watched Trump endorse in a host of recent primaries, going on a winning streak in places as diverse as a congressional primary on New York’s blue-collar Staten Island and a gubernatorial primary in culturally conservative Kansas.
Citing internal polling, strategists involved in many of those races say Trump’s endorsements played a critical role in shaping the outcome — evidence of just how potent his support is with rank-and-file Republicans, even as it also risks galvanizing the other side.
“The ability to totally, single-handedly swing an election is kind of terrifying, but it’s reality,” said one GOP strategist who has been involved in several gubernatorial contests across the country, and who like many sources interviewed for this story declined to discuss internal polling and strategy on the record. “It’s the president’s party, at least for the foreseeable future, and we’re all just attending.”
In Kansas, on the day before the primary, Trump endorsed Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an immigration hardliner and conservative who was running against incumbent Gov. Jeff Colyer.
The final vote count took days, and the Colyer campaign said at the time that it had “consistently led in mail-in ballots statewide in this election.” But ultimately, Kobach eked out a victory—and political operatives who watched the race closely think Trump’s endorsement had something to do with it.
“If you look at Election Day voting versus early voting, it obviously was profoundly different,” said the GOP source involved in governors’ races. “I don’t know what else to chalk that up to but the Trump endorsement.”
On Staten Island earlier this summer, some public polls showed former Rep. Michael Grimm ahead of incumbent Rep. Dan Donovan as each competed to be the most pro-Trump candidate. Trump sided with Donovan.
“Where it really had an impact was with those who said...‘At the end of the day, the president says Donovan’s the guy,’” said a Donovan adviser who said the congressman ended up overperforming internal polling estimates. “That was the difference between a close race and what turned out to be a pretty commanding victory.”
The numbers were even more stark in gubernatorial contests in Florida and Georgia.
The day that Trump endorsed Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp in a primary runoff, his opponent, Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle, plummeted, according to internal numbers from the pro-Cagle camp. He never recovered, dropping from a lead to a nearly 40-percentage point loss in a matter of days.
And in Florida, Rep. Ron DeSantis trailed Florida Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam in the gubernatorial primary earlier this summer, according to some data. But after Trump reiterated his support for DeSantis on Twitter—and the congressman played up the endorsement in ads—he pulled ahead, polls showed, and he defeated Putnam by 20 percentage points last week.
Certainly, Trump has also endorsed candidates who appeared to be ahead anyway. And in other races where he has intervened—a special election in Ohio’s heavily suburban 12th district, for example—the contests have sometimes been competitive largely because Trump has dragged down GOP candidates in the first place, and has motivated the Democratic base to turn out in anger.
Indeed, outside of primaries, Trump has endorsed in a host of special elections in traditionally conservative territory that his party has gone on to lose, from Alabama to western Pennsylvania, a warning for the general election that firing up the base, even with Trump’s help, might not be enough in a tough environment for Republicans.
“We’re going to learn a hard lesson,” said the GOP strategist involved in governors’ races. “I hope I’m wrong, but I think it’s possible we learn the hard lesson that a base is not enough to win a general election.”
But for the many candidates Trump has boosted in primary season, their fates are now intertwined with his approval ratings as general election season arrives and they seek to court independents, said a major GOP donor who has been involved in races in which Trump has endorsed. After benefiting from Trump’s support in the primary, there is no avoiding that branding in the general.
“Republican candidates are tied to Trump’s agenda and personality,” the donor said. “There’s no use for a Ron DeSantis or a John James [the Trump-backed Michigan GOP Senate nominee] to run from Trump. They need to embrace him and hope that he’s at a high enough general election number, which probably means around 50 percent, that they can then win on a localized race. But there’s no way they escape from him.”
And they shouldn’t try, argued John McLaughlin, whose firm is involved in House races and who did polling for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign. He noted that the Republican-held Congress hasn’t followed through on core campaign promises such as repealing Obamacare, disappointing many conservative voters. To keep the Republican base engaged, candidates across the board need to tap into Trump, he said.
“The Republican majority in Congress has not passed a lot of things that are popular,” he said. “That’s where the trouble is with reelecting House [members], getting more Senate seats. The president is picking them up, they’re standing on his shoulders.”
Katie Glueck: 202-286-2392, @katieglueck