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A senior White House official told donors on Saturday that Republicans could win the mid-term elections despite President Trump's unpopularity and that it would depend on the likelihood of individual candidates.
"You can hate the president, and many people do, but they certainly love the way the country is going," said the White House budget director in Manhattan at a conference of the Republican National Committee. obtained by the Washington Post. "If you find a way to subtract from this equation what they think of the president, the numbers increase dramatically."
Mulvaney told donors at the private meeting that he was facing constant questions about whether Republicans will lose the House. Polls show Democrats are ahead of Republicans by significant margins in generic newsletters, and many GOP strategists fear that Trump will motivate Democrats more than Republicans to vote this fall.
[Poll: Democrats regain clear advantage in midterms shaping up as referendum on President Trump]
The president has launched a national training tour for mid-term candidates and is looking to make the 2018 mid-term elections a referendum on him – telling voters that if the Democrats win, he could be indicted. He told reporters this week that candidates would win because of his confessions and he listed a four-page list of his accomplishments to the crowds.
Mulvaney, a former congressman from South Carolina, said he had come to give a more positive message than the donors heard in the media – and that Trump had a different tone. He said the mid-term elections would boil down to good candidates and local politics and seemed to indicate that Cruz might be in danger because he was not friendly.
"Do people love you? This is a very important question. This is a very important question. There is a very real possibility that we win a race for the Senate in Florida and that we lose a Senate race for the Senate. I do not think it's likely, but it's a possibility, "he said. "How is the candidate friendly? It always counts. When you vote for the president, you vote for … the big problems. When you vote for your congressman, you want to have that person in the eye and decide whether you like that person or not.
He added, "The President always asks me, why did Roy Moore lose? It's easy. Because he was a terrible candidate.
A spokesman for Mulvaney did not respond to the request for comment on his remarks during the private event. The RNC declined to comment.
Trump said last week that he will travel to Texas to hold a big rally for Cruz, who faces a challenge from Democratic Representative Beto O'Rourke. Recent polls show Cruz in the lead but in a tighter race than expected in a deep red state.
Mulvaney said the Republicans won in 2010 – an election that brought him to Congress – because they had a piece of legislation to sign against President Obama's Affordable Care Act. "It's us, it's them, and it was easy for us to make that distinction between the two parts."
He said the Democrats will not run against the GOP tax reduction bill passed last year. Republicans have still not repealed the Affordable Care Act as they had promised.
"How many Democrats have you heard say on the track, elect me, and we will cancel the tax bill," he said.
Mulvaney dismissed the energy left, where Democratic strategists claim to expect increased participation because of widespread opposition to Trump.
"When I see the rallies now on the left … they do not attract people," he said. "It's harder to get people into a hate movement. Anger does not really attract people. I do not think I have seen people who were Republicans or people who have never voted or voted for a long time. "
He has not mentioned any recent criticisms of how the president directs the administration, such as those appearing in Bob Woodward's upcoming book entitled "Fear" or Anonymity published in the New York Times. by a representative of the administration describing Trump as incompetent and mercurial.
Mulvaney also did not mention the overwhelming opposition to some of Trump's policies, such as the separation of migrant children from their parents at the border or the special council's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 elections. .
"The things we see in the news is a noble matter, a palace intrigue," he said.
Instead, he said voters would focus on issues that would not get the attention of the media – such as the new rules on religious freedom that were put in place by the Trump administration.
Mulvaney said he was attending a conference in Rome last week to talk to Catholic lawmakers around the world about the administration's stance on religious freedoms. "I went through the list of things we did in this administration. None of these things have ever received an inch of press, "he said.
Mr. Mulvaney added that all US law firms now have 20 different points to "monitor cases of religious freedom" and that every US law firm now has someone to deal with these issues.
"Really, really boring," he says. "But when you talk to a group of bureaucrats and elected officials like me, they know it's the kind of thing that matters."
He added, "There are thousands of examples like this one that have improved in the government since Donald Trump's election."
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