‘Pretend I’m on the Ballot,’ Trump Tells Supporters, Hoping To Grow Coattails and Scratch ‘the Six-Year Itch’

President Trump is battling a trend, “the six-year itch,” foreshadowing doom for his party in November’s midterm elections. Republicans are hoping that he can get his voters to show up, but transferring support is tricky political alchemy that’s proving beyond his capacity to perform.Sunday night on Fox News Channel, Mr. Trump told a host and former congressman, Harold “Trey” Gowdy, that he plans “to take a lot of time and … help people get elected, if I can.” The entire 435-member House — where a gain of three would give Democrats the majority — is up for grabs along with a third of the Senate.Democrats need to hold 13 Senate seats, three of them open, and net four to seize control. Republicans are defending 22, nine lacking the advantage of incumbency. There’s a “theory,” Mr. Trump said of this unfavorable scenario, that “when Trump is on the ballot,” Republicans “win, and when he’s not,” his supporters “don’t go to vote.”“I’m asking the people to get out and vote,” Mr. Trump said. “Pretend I’m on the ballot. … If I was on the ballot, everybody is saying it would be a slaughter. But, like, 35 percent of the people don’t vote that would’ve voted. And I’ve got to get them to vote. And if we do that, we’re going to have a great victory.”Mr. Trump said that Republicans “have some really good candidates,” but coattails have never been among his strengths. In 2016 when he won, Republicans dropped six House seats and two senators. In 2020, when he lost, the GOP went up 16 in the House and down three in the Senate. In 2024, he won again; his party lost one representative and gained three senators.In 2018, Mr. Trump had mixed results against the “midterm curse.” The GOP caucus shrank by 41 in the House but grew by two in the Senate. With the once-and-future president stumping for candidates in 2022, Republicans added nine House seats and subtracted one in the Senate — far short of the predicted “red wave.”For eight-year presidents, the six-year itch emerges during their second midterm election when voters tend to be tired of them. Mr. Trump faces it after ten years — and the only corollary of non-consecutive terms, President Cleveland in 1894, bodes ill.After the panic of 1893, Cleveland’s Democrats suffered the largest House loss in history, 127 seats, and dropped four in the 88-member Senate. On December 4, 1894, The New York Sun reported that the election had left the party “broken and defeated,” “repudiated by the people.”The Sun fixed the blame on “Clevelandism,” reporting that many on Capitol Hill had been returned “to private life” even though they were, “in a measure, blameless.” The defeated officeholders had only “followed the lead” of Cleveland on “tariff reform,” which voters blamed for the economic depression.Although today’s worries over “affordability” and tariffs are nowhere near 1894 levels, contemporary Americans expect prosperity and the near-flat inflation that existed between President Reagan up until the pandemic. Not that a booming economy inoculates against the six-year itch. Only one chief executive’s party since Reconstruction has defied it.In 1998, Democrats gained five House seats and maintained their Senate total, helped by Americans rejecting what President Clinton cast as his impeachment by GOP extremists. Mr. Trump, as this columnist has written in the Sun, is using the specters of impeachment, “communism,” “taxes raised,” and “open borders” under Democrats to motivate his supporters, too.“If they go out and vote,” Mr. Trump said on Fox, “we’re going to win, and if we don’t, our country will be in sad shape because we’re gonna go through a lot of things.” Yet existing conditions like Mr. Clinton’s impeachment, which was in full swing on Election Day 1998, motivate voters more than warnings about potential future dangers.Even at the height of his powers with voters sour on Democrats, Mr. Trump can do only so much for Republicans. “Some people like me,” he told Mr. Gowdy, “more than they like the party,” meaning it’s up to GOP candidates themselves to scratch the six-year itch.

‘Pretend I’m on the Ballot,’ Trump Tells Supporters, Hoping To Grow Coattails and Scratch ‘the Six-Year Itch’

‘Pretend I’m on the Ballot,’ Trump Tells Supporters, Hoping To Grow Coattails and Scratch ‘the Six-Year Itch’

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