President Has Message for Candidates: Stick With Me

SOUTHAVEN, Miss. — President Donald Trump’s advisers are planning an aggressive schedule in the month before the midterm elections for Trump to campaign with House candidates who have supported his agenda — and they are firing a warning shot at those who try to distance themselves from him.

The details of the president’s strategy for approaching the final five weeks before Nov. 6 elections were laid out in a memo from the White House political director, Bill Stepien, and circulated to West Wing aides.

The memo, obtained by The New York Times, essentially lays down a marker for once the dust has settled after Election Day, and it becomes clear which Republicans fared well and which did not. In the White House’s view, according to the memo, those Republicans who are running at a distance from Trump may come to regret it when the votes are cast.

Candidates who are looking for a path to victory need to “boldly align” themselves with a president who is historically popular with Republican voters, Stepien wrote.

The travel schedule will take Trump to congressional districts in Nevada, Minnesota, Kansas, Iowa, Pennsylvania, Ohio and Kentucky, in addition to stops he will make for certain competitive statewide races.

It is the first example of any concrete plans for how the White House will approach a midterm climate in which Republicans are widely believed to be facing difficulty. The president’s support is a help in some races, but in others, Trump is a polarizing figure with the independent voters whom candidates need in congressional races.

The outcome of the midterms will have significant consequences for how the remainder of Trump’s term in office plays out. A Democratic majority will have subpoena power, and party officials would be expected to use it aggressively.

Stepien acknowledged that a recent study by the veteran pollster Neil Newhouse, commissioned by the Republican National Committee, showed a troublesome climate for Republicans, with a clear enthusiasm edge for Democrats.

“Republicans are not currently enthusiastic about casting a ballot for their party’s candidates this November,” he wrote. “Needless to say, that’s a significant problem for the Republican Party.” He also referred to the losses that parties in power have historically faced.

But in the memo, Stepien suggested that candidates distancing themselves from the president are not capitalizing on one of the factors in the Republicans’ favor in the fall — the “historically optimistic mood of the American people” as measured in a “historical context,” a reference to polling data showing how many people believe the country is on the right track versus the wrong track.

He put the benchmark number that has been a harbinger for how midterm elections will turn out at 40 percent of people believing the country is going in the right direction. Right now, according to polling averages, that is what the number is, he wrote.

He added, “With Americans supporting the direction of the country at historically high levels — but with Republican voters clearly lagging in enthusiasm — the path forward is clear; Republican candidates need to closely, clearly and boldly align themselves with the policies that have provided Americans with this historic level of directional optimism.”

Minnesota, where the president will travel on Thursday for a campaign rally in Rochester, is an example of two congressional races where the candidates are taking decidedly different approaches.

Rep. Jason Lewis, a Republican from the 2nd Congressional District in Minnesota, has asked to join the president at the event, aides to Trump said. By contrast, Rep. Erik Paulsen, a five-term incumbent from the 3rd Congressional District has put distance between himself and the president.

In an early campaign ad over the summer, Paulsen highlighted his break with Trump on certain issues, a fact that Trump’s advisers see as hurting him, though New York Times Upshot/Siena College polls have shown both Lewis and Paulsen trailing their Democratic challengers. But one Republican strategist involved in congressional races, speaking on the condition of anonymity in order to be candid, noted that Trump was struggling for support in Paulsen’s district.

“Watch closely where the president has and will campaign; you will see the president aggressively campaigning in districts with candidates who enthusiastically embrace the policies that have put America on the pathway to prosperity,” Stepien wrote. “These are candidates who understand what it takes to win — and the president is eager to play his part in helping them.”