Donald Trump’s chief of staff said the president will ‘campaign like its 2024’ over the next year to prevent his Republican Party from a disaster in the midterm elections.
Susie Wiles, also known as the ‘Ice Maiden,’ said he will return to the road to try and remake the midterms as a referendum on Trump, even if the president doesn’t know it yet.
Wiles told The Mom View: ‘I haven’t broken it to him yet, but he’s going to campaign like it’s 2024!’
Trump will travel to Pennsylvania and Rhode Island on Tuesday to kick off a domestic travel blitz that Wiles said will stretch into the new year.
‘He’s going to have a fun next year, but we’re going to put him on the campaign trail, too,’ she said. ‘Typically, in the midterms, it’s not about who’s sitting at the White House… you localize the election and you keep the federal officials out of it. We’re actually going to turn that on its head and put him on the ballot.’
The Republican Party has repeatedly performed better with the president on the ballot than without but with his popularity on the wane, it could be a high-stakes ploy.
In 2016 and 2024, Trump at the top of the ticket led to the GOP controlling the White House and both houses of Congress.
Even in 2020, when Trump lost to Joe Biden, his presence on the ticket held the Democrats to a bare minimum majority in the Senate and a nine-seat lead in the House.
Without Trump on the ballot in 2018, the Democrats gained over 40 seats in the House, while they prevented a predicted ‘red wave’ in 2022 by gaining a Senate seat.
Wiles’ solution is to make sure Trump is leading the ticket in 2026 by drawing in voters who don’t traditionally participate in off-year elections.
The entire House of Representatives are up for election in 2026, while 35 seats in the Senate are open due to JD Vance and Marco Rubio departing to join the Trump administration.
The Republicans have to defend 22 seats to the Democrats’ 13, with Maine and North Carolina seen as particularly vulnerable to being flipped.
Though the Democrats need to flip four Republican seats to take back the Senate, Wiles is concerned enough by recent electoral results to make sure Trump is a huge part of the midterm push.
‘Because so many of those low-propensity voters are Trump voters. And we saw a week ago Tuesday what happens when he’s not on the ballot and not active,’ Wiles said.
Wiles is referring to the Congressional special election in Tennessee, where Matt Van Epps held the seat for the GOP but beat leftist Democrat Aftyn Behn by just nine points in a seat Trump won by 22 a year earlier.
‘We’re gonna’ put Trump on the ballot,’ she confirmed.
The president could also use the rallies to ride a recent bounce back from dismal polling numbers.
The president’s rating jumped from 45 percent to 47 percent between November 21 and December 4, according to the most recent Daily Mail/J.L. Partners survey.
The poll included 1,000 registered voters who participated in online surveys; the margin of error is 3.1 percent.
The two-point increase over the past weeks comes as prices have stabilized and spending records were set over the Thanksgiving holiday, despite concerns over an affordability crisis which Trump has branded a ‘Democrat scam.’
Still, Trump’s disapproval rating remains elevated at 53 percent.
Inflation and the cost of living are the leading sources of dissatisfaction for Trump’s administration, according to the November Daily Mail/J.L./Partners online poll of roughly 1,250 US registered voters.
Many of the elements that once made Trump – who has declared as recently as last week that his presidency will mark the dawn of a new ‘golden age’ – so appealing to voters now appear to be the reasons why they are abandoning him.
The president’s economic and immigration policies, as well as his ‘approach to governing’ are the top three reasons voters are souring on him.
Healthcare also plays a role, as evidenced by the White House’s struggle to put together a plan to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies that are set to expire at the end of February.
However, MAGA Republicans remain committed to the president, his agenda and gaining his support.
In his victory speech, Van Epps doubled down on his support of the president, noting that ‘running from Trump is how you lose,’ before adding that ‘running with Trump is how you win.’
‘Politicians who run from the president or abandon the common-sense policies that the American people gave us a resounding mandate on do so at their own peril,’ Van Epps said at his victory party.
‘No matter what the DC insiders or liberal media say, this is President Trump’s party. I’m proud to be a part of it and can’t wait to get to work.’
While the win is a relief for the party in power, it also carries warning signs for Republicans’ midterm election hopes. If Democrats came this close in ruby red Tennessee, it means a batch of other seats are likely to be vulnerable next year.
Van Epps’ victory follows a trio of Democrat victories in off-year elections in November which, while they happened in traditionally blue states, saw candidates backed by the GOP lose big.
In New Jersey, where Trump backed Republican Jack Ciattarelli, Democrat Mikie Sherrill defied all polling to win by 14 points, while Democrat Abigail Spanger routed Winsome Earle-Sears by 15 points in Virginia.
While Trump half-heartedly backed former rival Andrew Cuomo against socialist Zohran Mamdani, he still saw Mamdani beat the former governor by nearly 10 points.
This unexpected closeness of a single-digit race in a Republican stronghold raised serious questions about the GOP’s brand nationwide and their voter enthusiasm heading into 2026.
Trump faces additional headaches in the midterms from the two parties going back-and-forth threatening to gerrymander states’ Congressional seats in their favor.
While Texas has redistricted further to the right, Gavin Newsom’s Prop 50 passed with ease in California to match.
Indiana’s attempted redistricting has had trouble passing the state legislature, meaning Florida could be Trump’s last chance to add Republican-friendly seats.
Trump will head to northeastern Pennsylvania Tuesday, but the White House has yet to specify the exact location of his event.
Trump will travel to Wilkes-Barre according to News Nation, just 20 miles south of the birthplace of former President Joe Biden in Scranton, whom the president continues to blame for Americans’ economic woes.
‘The word “affordability” is a Democrat scam,’ Trump complained during his lengthy Cabinet meeting on Tuesday, bristling over recent Democratic election wins.
‘They had the worst inflation in the history of our country.’
Trump then knocked ‘sleepy Joe,’ his nickname for Biden, railing against the Democrat for having gas prices as high as $5 a gallon, while touting that he’s brought the prices down to around $2.75 a gallon.
According to recent reports, the average gas price in the US is approximately $2.99 to $3.00 per gallon, with some variation by state.
Northeastern Pennsylvania is expected to host one of the tightest House races next year.
Pennsylvania’s 8th Congressional District, which includes Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and part of the Poconos, was a squeaker of a race last year, with Republican Representative Rob Bresnahan flipping a longtime Democratic seat by winning just 50.8 percent of the vote.
While the Cook Political Report rates the district ‘lean Republican,’ Democrats see an opening as Bresnahan has gotten flack for having a ‘secret helicopter’ and dumping six figures worth of stock on companies that manage Medicaid before voting for cuts.
The Republican pushed back, telling NBC News he ‘never instructed my financial advisers on what to buy, sell, or hold.’
Bresnahan also introduced legislation to ban Congressional stock trading.
Still, Democrats believe it’s a district that can be flipped and Scranton’s Democratic Mayor Paige Cognetti has already jumped into the race.
Retired state administrative officer Francis McHale, another Democrat, is also running.
Trump already endorsed Bresnahan for reelection, doing so in early November on Truth Social.
While the president is known for his large-scale campaign rallies, he’s largely eschewed day-long domestic trips during his second term thus far.
He’s traveled to Florida for winter weekends at Mar-a-Lago and New Jersey for Bedminster summer weekends, but beyond that his domestic travel has largely been to sporting events or disaster zones.
Staffers hope sending Trump out on the road could help recapture the 2024 magic, when the president mounted one of the wildest political comebacks in American history.
Read more
- Can Democrats flip Scranton’s razor-thin Republican seat as Trump rallies troops?
- Is Trump on the verge of a sensational comeback after a dramatic triumph in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia?
- Can Trump’s grueling campaign marathon survive its final sprint? Discover his back-to-back rallies’ impact on swing states!
- Are Trump’s globe-trotting adventures undermining his domestic approval, risking Republican midterm hopes?
- How are Republican hopes hanging by a thread with looming special elections as Trump taps into their talent pool?
