Opinion
By Karl Rove
Reporting last week should give Republicans in toss-up races this fall some sleepless nights.
First, the Atlantic reported on a meeting in early August between President Trump and his political advisers on White House messaging for the midterms. According to people familiar with the gathering, the president’s people told him, in the magazine’s words, that “the voting public still does not know about many of his accomplishments.”
The president’s response was that since Democrats will make November a referendum on him anyway, the smart thing was to run ads touting his record. They’d be easy to create. Just mine Mr. Trump’s own on-camera statements, the president reportedly suggested. “Go look at the clips,” he said. “I cite accomplishments all the time.”
Then last Friday Fox News’s senior White House correspondent, Peter Doocy, reported he was “hearing some whispers of a ton of Trump travel in October, possibly as much as a Trump rally a day” in competitive states and districts. Mr. Doocy admitted you don’t typically see such an active presidential schedule, since midterms “are historically very hard for the president’s party.”
What could go wrong with a rally a day and hundreds of millions of dollars in ads in battleground states featuring Mr. Trump? A lot.
For starters, if your approval rating is low, making the election even more about you only helps the opposition.
Midterms are almost always a choice for voters between more of the same and change. Mr. Trump has a 39.6% approval in the RealClearPolitics average, with 56.9% disapproval. Plastering his face on every screen in every toss-up race will make the midterms even more about him and tie those candidates to an intensely unpopular status quo.
A presidential rally a day in the final month of the midterms will have the same effect but with an additional downside: Mr. Trump is never disciplined. He’ll have no script, saying whatever comes to mind. His crazy comments will dominate the news, locally and nationally. Republican candidates will constantly have to fend off questions about whether they agree with his latest insult or half-baked idea. The narrative won’t be on anything positive about them or the GOP.
It would be far more sensible to put those candidates at the forefront of Republican ads—not Mr. Trump. They should be the ones framing the choice voters face. They could share their views, values, agendas and contrast them with those of their opponents. After all, it’s their fates voters will decide.
Given all this, why is Team Trump talking about giving Democrats what they want and making the president the face of the GOP campaign this fall?
The answer: narcissism. Mr. Trump believes that in 2024 “the beauty” was “that we won by so much.” He thinks “the mandate was massive,” the biggest in “129 years in terms of the overall mandate.”
Not so much. His popular-vote margin was the fourth-smallest in 60 years—and that support has rapidly eroded.
White House politicos may be thinking rallies and ads are a winning ticket because Mr. Trump’s pollster pegs the president’s approval at 48% with 48% disapproving, much cheerier than RealClearPolitics’ average, which last had him at 48% in March 2025. If the president’s pollster is right and the electorate is evenly divided, then energizing Mr. Trump’s followers should be good for a couple of points, even if it juices the opposition a little at the same time.
But could every other poll really be wrong and this one flattering survey correct? That’s quite the bet to take with control of Congress on the line.
There’s an obvious better path for Mr. Trump to help GOP candidates: Act more presidential and empty his super PACs’ bank accounts.
The former requires taking time to explain what he’s doing in Iran and on the economy. Whoever helps him fling Truth Social messages out into the ether on other subjects should ask if each one helps Republicans. If not, don’t hit send.
The column by Mr. Rove, courtesy of KarlRove.com, was first published in The Wall Street Journal.
Karl Rove served as Senior Advisor to President George W. Bush from 2000–2007 and Deputy Chief of Staff from 2004–2007. At the White House he oversaw the Offices of Strategic Initiatives, Political Affairs, Public Liaison, and Intergovernmental Affairs and was Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy, coordinating the White House policy-making process. Notably, Mr. Rove was known as “The Architect” of President Bush’s 2000 and 2004 winning campaigns.