The Man Trying to Salvage the Midterms for Trump

Washington, D.C. — There is a story Donald Trump’s closest advisers like to tell about Donald Trump, and it goes something like this. He is the man who mounted the greatest electoral comeback in recent memory after being counted out and persecuted at every turn. He is the once-in-a-generation political talent who can sense voters’ mood before the pollsters do. In other words, he is and will remain Republicans’ single greatest electoral asset, even in a midterm cycle in which his polling numbers hover at historic lows and his name will not appear on the ballot.

And, contrary to the GOP naysayers worried Trump is dragging down Republicans this cycle, he is a president who “positively contributes, actually, to the politics and how we run campaigns.”

At least that’s the view of the man charged with executing Republicans’ midterm strategy, former deputy White House chief of staff James Blair. “I don’t know that campaign teams always feel that way about their candidates, but it’s definitely true for us,” Blair told me earlier this month in his office in downtown Washington. In this longtime MAGA operative’s view, Trump “certainly has probably the best political antenna of anybody that I’ve worked for.”