Is this what panic looks like? President Trump has been barnstorming the country in recent days, as part of a tour that will take him across the country until the midterms. His rallies, he says, have been “unbelievable,” generating “unbelievable crowds and enthusiasm.” They are “flipping races all the time.” News outlets—particularly old foes like The New York Times and CNN—may claim there are whole sections of empty seats, but they are lying. In reality, Trump insists on Truth Social, “the Rallies are ‘HOTTER’ than ever. They are all ‘happenings,’ and they never happened before, and will never be duplicated again.” Come the midterm elections, there will be a “MIDTERM SURPRISE.”
There is little point in arguing with Trump about crowd sizes because you can just look at the event photos—there are many empty seats. These rallies are also taking place at smaller venues than he’s used in the past, as noted in recent Daily Beast analysis. On Friday, Trump drew about 8,000 people to a basketball arena in Mobile, Alabama, that holds 10,000—whereas in 2015, he turned out more than 30,000 people to a football stadium in the same city. But perhaps the biggest problem of all is that he was in Mobile to begin with: Why is the president campaigning in deep-red Alabama when his party is fighting for its life in swing states?
Consider the hurricane-force headwinds facing the Republicans right now. The national average for a gallon of gas is $4.36, thanks in part to a foolhardy war with Iran that Trump started but has no clue how to finish. He’s also been waging a trade war with pretty much everyone, which is increasing the cost of myriad other goods. These self-inflicted wounds, coupled with ICE abuses and DOGE belligerence, have dragged down his approval rating to historic lows. No wonder the generic election ballot favors Democrats by more than 9 points, according to Nate Silver’s weighted average.
So, again, why is Trump rallying in places like Mobile and Durant, Oklahoma? “I’m really here because, sometimes,” Trump said at Friday’s Alabama rally, “you’ve got to pay respect to the people that loved you right from the beginning.” It’s a good line, but the notion that Trump pays respect to anyone is laughable. He is simply going where he’s still wanted—where he still has hardcore supporters, and where GOP incumbents and challengers still benefit politically from being seen next to him. There aren’t many of those places left.
So maybe this is what panic looks like. Trump really only has one mode: frenetic activity, for the sole purpose of focusing attention on him. Even with the Republican’s control of Congress in dire jeopardy, he’s more interested in his own adulation than his party’s survival. As The Atlantic’s Ashley Parker noted in a perceptive report on Tuesday, he “doesn’t seem to really care how Republican candidates fare in the midterms, but he’d rather they win than lose, if only because it would save him the headache of congressional investigations.”
Trump’s Greatest Hits tour gets at one of the odder dynamics in this year’s midterm elections. The race is all about Trump, directly and indirectly: about his political project and persona, yes, but also about how that project is currently affecting American lives (mostly badly). Trump is eagerly making the race about himself because that’s all that he knows how to do. Vulnerable Republicans, meanwhile, are doing everything they can to distance themselves from him—including breaking with him over Iran and immigration. But those efforts are often drowned out by the president himself.
Trump may talk about a “MIDTERM SURPRISE,” but his actions speak louder than his Truth Social posts and campaign statements. This week, he pulled government-funded political ads that were inescapable during the weekend’s NFL and college football games, claiming that they would be paid for from super PAC funds going forward (though that super PAC would not be reimbursing the government for more than $12 million already spent). He has started telling his supporters to vote by mail, even though he has falsely claimed for years that the practice is an engine of fraud. And he has started to get invested in races that Republicans shouldn’t have to worry about—like South Carolina’s Senate race, where he attacked Democratic nominee Annie Andrews, a cis woman, with an anti-trans slur.
That’s what panic looks like for Trump. For the rest of the Republican Party, they aren’t really hiding it. Iowa House Republicans were told “by their own pollsters,” per the very plugged in Steve Deace, “that if you are in a +15 district you’re within the margin for error, if you’re in a +10 district you’re underwater, and that this might end being an even worse midterm environment than 2006.” You’re seeing these issues everywhere, including many formerly safe red states: Kansas, South Carolina, even Mississippi. Polling misses are possible, but the vibecast is far more reliable: Thanks to interest rates, gas prices, trade wars, real wars, and Trump, these midterms are shaping up to be a historic bloodbath for the Republicans.
Trump will keep jetting from rally to rally, and keep jerking his arms as “YMCA” blares in ever-smaller venues. He will keep reciting old grievances about Hillary Clinton and newer ones about trans people and Canadians. He will keep doing what he’s always done because he doesn’t know how to do anything else. But there was a kernel to what he said in Mobile about seeking the company of the people who loved him all along. As he becomes more unpopular and his party’s panic grows, these cozy rallies are his safe space—the last remaining place where he is still adored, still funny, and still winning.
