The "White" campaign strategy

Behind Pence’s plan to rescue the Republican majority in 2018

In an exclusive interview, the vice president said the GOP could expand its majorities in Congress with his team’s campaign strategy.

By JAKE SHERMAN and ANNA PALMER

Vice President Mike Pence is launching one of the most aggressive campaign strategies in recent White House history: he will hopscotch the country over the next three months, making nearly three dozen stops that could raise tens of millions of dollars for House and Senate Republicans, all while promoting the party's legislative accomplishments.

If done right, Pence said in an exclusive interview with POLITICO backstage before his speech to the House and Senate GOP here Wednesday night, Republicans could expand their majority in both chambers.

“Elections are about choices,” he said in the interview in which he discussed his midterm outlook in detail for the first time. “If we frame that choice, I think we’re going to re-elect majorities in the House and the Senate and I actually think we’re going to, when all the dust settles after 2018, I think we’re going to have more Republicans in Congress in Washington, D.C., than where we started.”

The vice president’s team has devised a unique ancillary strategy to support his cross-country campaigning: partnering with America First Policies — a Trump-backed public-policy non-profit group designed to boost the president's agenda — to hold public events designed specifically to discuss legislative achievements like the tax bill.

The goal is to have the group set up events to help voters understand what the White House sees as the upside of the Republicans’ legislative agenda. A senior administration official said Pence's message at the events will provide a “blueprint for how to be successful in midterms.”

In the interview, Pence vowed to take sharp aim at congressional Democrats in red states who oppose the president’s agenda. On Wednesday, he used a public event here to remind West Virginia voters that “Joe voted no” on tax cuts — a shot at Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.).

“As we travel around the country, whether it be a political event or an official event we’re going to make sure ... the American people know that the agenda that we’re advancing is a result of partners on Capitol Hill and we’re going to thank the people that are helping us, and we’re going to make sure people know ... what the other side looks like,” Pence said.

Pence said he would campaign against Sen. Joe Donnelly, an Indiana Democrat he served with in the House.

“I expect we’re going to spend a fair amount of time in the states that the president carried very strongly — Indiana being one of them, West Virginia here being another, places like Montana, elsewhere around the country, we think represent a real opportunity for us,” Pence said.

Pence’s plan, extraordinary for a vice president, has its roots in a congressional summit at Camp David.

In early January, congressional Republicans leaders projected the risk of political peril to White House staff at the presidential retreat. Pence’s team asked top GOP campaign operatives to compile a political road map to help them keep their congressional majorities.

Using a PowerPoint presentation, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy was blunt: this year could be historically bad for Republicans. But, he noted, the GOP had time to turn it around. Pence and President Donald Trump made a decision: it was time for them to activate. Pence’s team asked the National Republican Senatorial Committee and National Republican Congressional Committee where the vice president could be helpful.

Soon after, Pence invited Cory Gardner, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, and Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, along with their top aides to the Naval Observatory, where the vice president’s team handed them a piece of paper detailing the strategy.

The double-barreled approach — reported here for the first time — includes stops around the country over the next 10 weeks. This weekend he’ll head to Pittsburgh for an event for Rick Saccone, a Republican running in a tight special election. It includes a Feb. 16 stop in San Antonio for Rep. Will Hurd, the lawmaker who represents the Texas-Mexico border. On Feb. 21, he’ll be in Naples, Florida, for an NRCC event.

In March alone, Pence plans to be in the Detroit area for the NRCC; Kentucky for Rep. Andy Barr; Missouri for Josh Hawley’s Senate bid; Ohio for Rep. Steve Stivers, the chairman of the NRCC; New York for the NRCC, Minnesota, Iowa and Pennsylvania. In April, he heads to North Carolina for Rep. Mark Walker, Omaha for Rep. Don Bacon, Nevada for Dean Heller and Indiana for the NRSC.

Of course, this might not matter. The House battlefield is now, by Democrats’ estimate, somewhere close to 80 seats deep. Trump’s approval ratings are flagging. And it’s an open question whether voters will reap the economic benefits from the tax bill that Republicans hope.

Republican leaders say privately they want Pence — not Trump — on the road for the GOP in an election year with perilous political winds.

House Republicans, meanwhile, will see the most up-to-date political forecast Thursday here at the tony Greenbrier Resort, when Stivers presents the NRCC’s most recent findings to the GOP.

Pence — a former House Republican Conference chair, who remains close to members in both chambers — likens the dim forecast for his party to the bad predictions that Trump would get romped in 2016.

“I know that conventional wisdom says that the first midterm election for the party in the White House is challenging — but you know what President Trump thinks of conventional wisdom,” Pence said.

“I was in that campaign in 2016,” Pence added. “I’ll never forget how many times we were treated to the latest polling that showed that the race was all but decided. But I never believed it. And I’ve got the same feeling right now.”