President Donald Trump urged his supporters Monday to treat the November midterm elections as though his own name were on the ballot, pledging to campaign and spend money for Republican candidates as the party fights to maintain its congressional majorities.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom.
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump moved to put himself at the center of Republicans’ closing midterm campaign Monday, telling his MAGA supporters to vote in November as though they were casting another ballot for him.
“MAGA, pretend I am on the ballot,” Trump wrote in a Truth Social post. “Don’t let them open your Borders, and allow crime to again flourish. KEEP AMERICA GREAT!!!”
The appeal came five weeks before Election Day as Republicans work to defend their narrow congressional majorities and national party organizations increase spending across a relatively small number of competitive House districts.
Trump also promised to use his own political organization and financial resources to support GOP candidates during the final stretch of the campaign.
“I’ll be out there spending money, and helping every one of them get elected,” Trump said. “I won most of these places, often by a landslide.”
The president issued the comments after praising Heritage Foundation and Heritage Action President Kevin Roberts for an appearance Monday morning on Fox Business in which Roberts disputed assessments suggesting Republicans face substantial difficulties in November.
“The topic was Fake Polls and how well the Republicans are going to do in the upcoming Midterms,” Trump wrote.
Roberts appeared on “Mornings with Fox Business,” where he characterized control of the House as a “jump ball” and challenged pessimistic assessments of Republican prospects. He argued that analysts were underestimating conservative turnout and said individual races remained competitive with more than a month of campaigning left.
Trump’s full message praised Roberts as “a fabulous guy” and said the Heritage leader “was fantastic on FoxNews this morning” before turning to Trump’s plans to assist Republican candidates. An independent archive of Trump’s social-media posts also recorded the message Monday.
The president’s effort to motivate his own political base comes as Republican officials confront a House map that has become more competitive during September.
The Cook Political Report announced Friday that it was moving 15 House contests in a Democratic direction following reviews of polling, advertising and the broader political environment. The changes included Republican-held districts in Arizona, New Jersey, Florida, North Carolina and Texas.
Two of those seats are Arizona’s 1st Congressional District and New Jersey’s 7th District. Three additional Republican-held districts, including the Texas seat represented by Rep. Monica De La Cruz, were moved into Cook’s most competitive category.
The shifts leave a relatively limited set of districts likely to determine control of the chamber.
According to Axios, Cook’s Sept. 25 ratings placed 208 districts in Democratic-leaning categories and 205 in Republican-leaning categories, with 22 classified as Toss Ups. Seventeen of those Toss Up districts are currently held by Republicans and five by Democrats. Those classifications are Cook’s assessments rather than election results or guarantees of how the districts will vote.
Republicans nevertheless enter the final campaign stretch with a substantial financial advantage at the House campaign-committee level.
The National Republican Congressional Committee ended August with approximately $89 million in cash, compared with about $76 million for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, giving the NRCC a roughly $13 million advantage.
Axios reported that the difference was the largest cash-on-hand advantage the NRCC has held at this stage of an election cycle.
Republicans have also been deploying that money more quickly.
As of Sept. 18, the NRCC had spent approximately $16.9 million on advertising across 39 congressional districts, compared with about $3.7 million spent by the DCCC across 13 districts, according to AdImpact figures cited by Axios.
The wider Republican campaign apparatus has spent heavily as well. GOP-aligned groups had spent more than $450 million through Sept. 23, according to campaign-finance data cited by Axios, while Trump’s political operation has begun drawing from a war chest exceeding $400 million for the final stages of the midterm campaign.
Trump himself has previously said his political operation would commit hundreds of millions of dollars to Republican candidates.
Reuters reported earlier in September that Trump-linked groups were accelerating spending in competitive House and Senate contests, with his allied No Going Back PAC reserving tens of millions of dollars in advertising and other political organizations directing resources into closely contested races.
Monday’s Truth Social message indicates that Trump plans to supplement that financial campaign with a personal turnout appeal.
Midterm elections historically present a different challenge for presidents because the president is not on the ballot, and turnout among voters who supported the incumbent two years earlier can decline.
Trump’s instruction to “pretend I am on the ballot” represents an attempt to transfer the enthusiasm of his presidential coalition to Republican congressional candidates.
Republican leaders are pursuing the same objective through an extensive campaign schedule.
House Speaker Mike Johnson plans to visit more than 40 congressional districts across 22 states through Election Day, dividing his travel between Republican-held districts the party is defending and Democratic-held seats the GOP hopes to capture.
Johnson’s itinerary includes Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, among other stops.
Republican leaders argue their fundraising, advertising advantage and turnout operation can offset difficult political conditions in some battleground districts.
“House races are won in the districts, and Republicans have the stronger ground game, air superiority across the battleground, and historic financial firepower while Democrats are still begging for cash just to prop up their socialist bailout fund,” NRCC spokesman Mike Marinella told Axios after the Cook ratings changes.
Democrats have offered the opposite assessment.
“The floor is falling out from underneath House Republicans. After two years of raising costs and lying to the American people, they’ve all but assured that they will lose the majority in November,” DCCC Communications Director Courtney Rice told Axios.
Those statements reflect the competing campaign arguments of the two parties rather than established outcomes.
Economic concerns remain prominent in national polling as voters approach the midterms.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Sept. 17-20 found Trump’s overall approval at 32% among U.S. adults, with 17% approving of his handling of the cost of living. The poll surveyed 1,277 adults and had a margin of error of about 3 percentage points. It also found Democrats holding an eight-point advantage over Republicans when respondents were asked which party they would support in the congressional elections.
That national survey does not directly determine outcomes in individual congressional districts, where candidate quality, district boundaries, local issues, turnout and campaign spending can produce different results.
Trump and Roberts have both sought to cast doubt on unfavorable polling and political analysis.
Roberts said Monday that the Washington “chattering class” had repeatedly been wrong about election results and argued that some gloomy predictions could discourage conservative participation. He described the narrative surrounding Republican prospects as a “psy-op” designed “to depress conservative turnout.”
He also pointed to Senate contests in states including New Hampshire, Michigan and Minnesota as races where he believed Republican candidates remained competitive. Those comments represented Roberts’ political assessment rather than an independent projection.
Trump’s response was to emphasize turnout rather than polling.
His message invoked two issues that have remained central to his political coalition — immigration and crime — warning supporters not to allow Democrats to reverse his administration’s policies.
The post also underscored the degree to which Republicans intend to make Trump himself part of their closing campaign message despite his absence from the ballot.
Trump has campaigned heavily on immigration enforcement throughout his second term, while Republican congressional candidates have frequently promoted border security and crime as part of their case for retaining control of Congress.
At the same time, Democrats have concentrated much of their midterm messaging on the cost of living, health care, energy prices and opposition to Trump administration policies.
The result is a campaign in which both parties are trying to nationalize congressional contests while still competing district by district.
Trump’s Monday appeal makes clear how he plans to approach that contest.
Rather than distance himself from vulnerable Republican candidates, the president is asking his supporters to view the midterms as an extension of his own political campaign.
“I’ll be out there spending money, and helping every one of them get elected,” Trump said.
And his instruction to the MAGA electorate was even more direct: “pretend I am on the ballot.”
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