Races look lost

North Carolina and Georgia Senate races look lost for the GOP. Why Trump is going anyway.

Republican super PACs are shifting their money to states like Kansas and South Carolina. Trump is heading to states they left behind.

By Alex Gangitano, Megan Messerly and Erin Doherty

President Donald Trump is heading to states that top Republicans are increasingly writing off.

Trump is expected in Georgia on Friday and North Carolina on Tuesday, two states where top outside GOP groups slowed or stopped spending to divert resources to key races in red states like Kansas and South Carolina.

The president, however, still sees those races as winnable and a Trump rally can do a couple of things money can’t buy. The president can boost turnout, generate a storm of local media coverage and show those who’ve been loyal to him — North Carolina Senate candidate Michael Whatley, for instance — that he hasn’t forgotten them, despite the long odds.

“Having him show up and doing his rallies in these states generates Republican enthusiasm from the MAGA base to come out to vote. And if these are going to impact particular races, whether it’s at the governor level or particular House seats, that could be quite useful,” said Ron Bonjean, a veteran Republican strategist who previously served as top spokesperson for House and Senate GOP leaders. “Trump is extremely loyal to Whatley, and you can see him visiting and trying to help him out, just based on their relationship. … This is a Hail Mary pass that Trump’s throwing on behalf of Whatley.”

Inside the White House, Trump’s aides say his ability to power through rally after rally, week after week allows time to travel to states where the president’s optimism does not match the polling.

And they aren’t just thinking about the Senate.

Holding governor’s seats in Georgia and Arizona — where Trump rallied Wednesday for GOP gubernatorial candidate Rep. Andy Biggs — will be key in future redistricting battles, as well as certifying the results of the 2028 election.

And, importantly, Trump likes Georgia gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson and Senate candidate Mike Collins — who he endorsed in the state’s contentious GOP primary runoff — and wants to help them. Republicans see Georgia’s governor’s race as increasingly winnable: Jackson, who has poured more than $100 million of his own money into Georgia’s governor’s race, is leading in recent public polls, even as operatives in the state expect it to be close.

Trump also feels a sense of allegiance to Whatley, the former RNC chair and his handpicked candidate in the race.

“The president 100% still sees North Carolina in play. The president has no intention whatsoever of leaving Whatley high and dry,” said a senior White House official granted anonymity to discuss the president’s thinking.

It isn’t only Whatley.

Biggs, who supported Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results, is down 11 percentage points to incumbent Katie Hobbs, according to Real Clear Politics. But Trump, who has a special affinity for those who tried to keep him in power after he lost the 2020 election, called Biggs a “friend” and “somebody that’s very special.”

The president’s trips come as anxious Republicans increasingly write off Senate seats. In Georgia and North Carolina, even Republican pollsters have the Democratic Senate candidates up outside the margin of error.

The Senate Leadership Fund, which is the GOP’s top Senate super PAC, is pausing spending in North Carolina while stepping up advertising in Kansas and beginning to spend in South Carolina where Trump-endorsed Sen. Darline Graham is polling only slightly ahead of Democrat Annie Andrews. In a further sign of troubles for Whatley in North Carolina, his campaign is currently dark on TV, although they say they will be “back on the air shortly.”

Polling also shows competitive Senate races in once-Trump strongholds such as Alaska, Iowa, Ohio and Texas, which has forced Republicans into triage mode, shifting money away from races they consider tougher to win to ones they absolutely must win to hold the Senate. Trump just made the trip to Alaska and he will travel to Iowa twice before Election Day — on Oct. 22 and Nov. 1.

But Trump remains the Republican Party’s biggest turnout driver, which makes him a unique resource in states like Georgia and North Carolina.

“President Trump is barnstorming the country to campaign with Republicans, energize voters, and tout his agenda that’s cutting taxes, slashing violent crime, and putting more money in Americans’ pockets. Democrats are broke, divided, and stuck supporting toxic candidates like nepo baby Jon Ossoff and soft-on-crime hack Roy Cooper,” said RNC spokesperson Emma Hall.

White House spokesperson David Ingle added that Trump is “the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party, and he is committed to maintaining Republican majorities in Congress.”

Not all Republicans see Trump as an unalloyed positive. They note that Trump juices turnout both ways and that having a president with a mid-30s approval rating show up in town could backfire.

“If you’re Mike Collins, you’re down so bad that anything to generate some enthusiasm is positive. He probably welcomes it because he’s been written off by everybody, and this will at least give the appearance of some momentum,” said one GOP operative in Georgia. “I think that the folks on the Jackson campaign wish he was in the country of Georgia [on Friday] instead of the state.”

The Jackson campaign declined to comment.

Still, many Republicans believe Trump’s presence will boost turnout, especially in rural areas, and could be the difference if Democratic enthusiasm fails to translate into votes.

Georgia GOP Chair Josh McKoon pointed to early voting data that indicated Black and younger voters aren’t showing up in the same numbers they did in 2022 when GOP Gov. Brian Kemp won by roughly 7 percentage points. If turnout for Democrats erodes, he said, Trump’s visit could make all the difference.

“That is why President Trump visiting Dalton matters,” McKoon said. “He can activate and turn out those voters key to running a margin.”

The White House is also trying to steward the president’s time well by making sure he’s hitting multiple races with one campaign stop.

His North Carolina rally, for instance, won’t be in the state’s competitive 1st District — where Republican Laurie Buckhout is trying to unseat Democrat Don Davis, one of the GOP’s top pickup opportunities — but in the nearby 3rd District, in Greenville. White House officials say the location is more central than holding another rally in Rocky Mount, like he did right before Christmas, allowing the president to also target the Senate race.

“He’s going to draw voters from the 1st Congressional District. That’s crazy to think that he’s not going to. It’s just a rural district. Like, that’s just the brass tacks of it,” the White House official said, describing holding a rally in Greenville as “good political sense.”

And plenty of Republican strategists working midterm races believe that going to a state like Georgia at least once is worth the president’s time — even if whatever turnout boost it provides is ultimately small — compared to going to another red state repeatedly. Texas and Ohio are the only two states the president has held rallies in twice since the beginning of his whirlwind midterm travels at the start of October.

“The perfect situation is that you’re deploying him strategically to areas of the state where he’s a net positive, where he’s helping to pump up base turnout, but you’re not wearing out your welcome,” said one longtime GOP operative working on House and Senate races. “We don’t want him to go to Kansas four times.”

And a trip to Georgia isn’t costing him anything with Republicans in Ohio.

“Clearly, Ohio’s close,” said Terry Casey, an Ohio-based GOP operative. “But again, bottom line, it’s not like Ohio’s being neglected.”