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WASHINGTON – As early voting began Monday in Florida, Senator Bill Nelson and Gov. candidate Andrew Gillum have invited former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to settle in. Jacksonville and Tampa to urge Democrats to go to the polls in two polling stations. the most fierce races in the country.
Earlier voting also began Monday in Texas, and it was here that President Trump addressed a 18,000 seat president, NB. arena. But he was gathering support in two less competitive races: the re-election campaigns of Senator Ted Cruz and Governor Greg Abbott.
The local Republican congressman locked in a difficult campaign: John Culberson, whose affable neighborhood is filled with moderates who come back from Mr. Trump, was remarkably absent from the riotous festivities of Houston's Toyota Center, which also gathered thousands of people.
Screening between Florida and Texas – one of the country's most crucial presidential battlegrounds and the other pillar of the conservative force – perfectly illustrates Trump's role in the fall campaign . He is often far from the center of action, eschewed by many of his party's most vulnerable candidates for the House, but he still has an enthusiastic audience of a scale rarely seen in a mid-term election.
Two weeks before the counting of votes, and the first verdict handed down to his presidency, Mr. Trump submerges the campaign of tactics such as attack the caravan of migrants, but is also detached from some of the races that can determine who controls the house.
While polls show that this president is more a factor in voters' calculations – for and against – than his predecessors, Mr. Trump has avoided large tracts of the country. The entire Pacific coast, much of the northeastern and major interior cities such as Chicago, Minneapolis and Kansas City, where Republican lawmakers do not want to be seen with him, are actually prohibited areas.
He is hardly the first president whose unpopularity limited his field trips – there were many candidates who did not want to appear with the last two occupants of the Oval Office. But there has never been such a conflict between the vanity of a president and the political reality he faces. Mr. Trump is as much a celebrity as a politician and he wants his rallies, which are only nominally on the incumbent of the position for which he is in town, match the hype of other celebrities in the world.
The representative of North Dakota, Kevin Cramer, whom Mr. Trump personally desired to launch against Senator Heidi Heitkamp, recounted the many conversations he had had with the President about the highly populated stadiums of his state, and stated that Mr. Trump was interested in the state of North Dakota. FargoDome University.
"Do you know how many arenas I've beaten Elton John's record?" ", Recalls Mr. Cramer.
The president's destinations also reflect the contradictory impulses of his advisers. White House political director Bill Stepien and his colleagues are eager to claim credit for saving as many seats as possible in the House, even though the market must be as small as the one to which they must send the president, according to regulars of planning.
However, Brad Parscale, managing director of Trump's Campaign 2020 campaign, and his allies are keen to strengthen the president's political strength before his bid for re-election, and to collect as many phone numbers as possible. portable and emails as possible – and so prefer overflowing with big city places such as the NBA Rockets House in Houston.
Thus, after his rally in the country's fourth city on Monday, Trump will meet again on Saturday, before the last weekend before the elections, in Murphysboro, Illinois. 7,568 where Rep. Mike Bost could use a lift in a neighborhood closer to Memphis than Chicago.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, leader of the majority, said the president's itinerary was reminiscent of President George W. Bush's tight schedule in 2006, at the height of the war in Iraq, when he was even more unpopular as Mr. Trump is now.
"We could almost get it nowhere," McConnell said of Bush. "He ended up only going to places where he was always fit."
The Senate map is a more friendly terrain for Mr. Trump. The most competitive races take place in states where Mr. Trump remains popular or, at least, is not as toxic as in some House districts to grab.
Mr. McConnell praised him for his "willingness to go where he needs to go," and the President has been in great demand in the campaigns for the Senate, where Republicans have a simple majority of seats.
"I'm counting on one more time," said Cramer, who, according to polls, leads to his candidacy against Ms. Heitkamp.
He's barely alone: other Republicans involved in many of the most competitive Senate races are also clamoring for a final visit to Air Force One before polling day to motivate pro-Trump voters.
"The president is the trump card in Montana," said Sen. Steve Daines, a Republican who hopes to help defeat the other senator, Democrat Jon Tester. "Another visit from him just before polling day will still lead G.O.P. and increase support for Matt Rosendale, "he said, referring to Mr. Tester's challenger.
Most of the President's time shows are one-man shows: unlike former presidents, the hour candidate receives Mr. Trump's microphone for a brief period during his monologue. The strategists involved in the campaigns even began to predict how much time he had before the president mentions the race in question and begins to attack the democrat on the ballot, which represents the 30 seconds of images they covet most.
And Mr. Trump's desire to fill the arenas often outweighs the candidate's preference that he is supposed to help. When he traveled to Pennsylvania earlier this month to approve Representative Lou Barletta's Senate campaign, for example, the President chose to appear at Erie rather than at Pittsburgh, even as the campaign Mr. Barletta said she preferred Pittsburgh, according to officials close to the MP, emphasized they were delighted to have the president at all.
For other lawmakers and Republican agents, however, Trump rallies are just dangers to avoid. In some races in the House, the president was forced to show up in the second cities – Topeka instead of Kansas City, or Rochester instead of Minneapolis – because the incumbents are trying to convince the electorate of their suburbs that They are independent of Mr. Trump.
"They are between the hammer and the anvil," said Thomas M. Davis III, a former Virginia Republican congressman, about the attempt to balance calls made to anti-Trump voters high in range and supporters of the party.
The White House assistants, who were not allowed to speak publicly about strategy, said their teams were handing over to the campaigns to choose where Mr. Trump could be most useful in their districts or their districts. States, and that even debates in the Senate in which it appears had voting advantages. This week, he will appear in three districts with free seats, which, according to White House officials, are at the root of their difficulties this year.
Officials told 17 districts of the House in which Trump had been campaigning in mid-October and indicated that the areas in which he appears are the best places to attract non-traditional voters in mid-term who he is. have supported.
Representatives from the West Wing have often mentioned the representative of Erik Paulsen (Minnesota) and the representative of Kansas, Kevin Yoder (Kansas), and Mr. Stepien even went so far as to write a note this month warning lawmakers that they would not get away if they did not boldly align with the president.
But this remains an open question in Florida, where Senate Governor Rick Scott has drawn the White House's attention to his willingness to appear before Mr. Trump during official events, but has refused to stand with the president at his beloved gatherings. .
The president plans a trip to Fort Myers next week and could return to Florida once again before the election, but it's unclear whether Scott will attend the rally, which will feature the Republican candidate for governorship, Ron DeSantis. A private poll conducted by both parties indicates that the campaigns for the governor and senator are, in typical Florida fashion, extremely extraordinary.
West Wing officials said they were paying attention to the behavior of the governor and one of Mr. Trump's most virulent allies in Florida had urged Mr. Scott to run for president when would come to campaign.
"I urge the governor to join us in rallying the troops as early voting approaches," said Matt Gaetz representative.
Scott's spokesperson did not answer questions about his plans, but the governor's advisers were reluctant to see him on stage because of the president's penchant for misappropriation of script and inflammatory remarks. And with Mr. Trump picking up his rhetoric against immigrants and Mr. Nelson linking Mr. Scott to the president in Spanish-language ads, those sensibilities are even more vivid.
A senior Republican official with ties to Mr. Trump and Mr. Scott predicted that the governor would likely use his role as clean-up manager after Hurricane Michael to avoid going to any political event – but this leader acknowledged If there had been no storm, the governor would probably propose another excuse to avoid the risk of standing with the president, always unpredictable.
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