KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Lara Trump, President Trump’s daughter-in-law and senior adviser to his 2020 reelection campaign, says the president will not bear responsibility for GOP losses in this year’s midterm elections.
Lara Trump told The Hill that the president wishes he were on the campaign trail more often. But she said that Republicans have a hard time capitalizing on Trump’s popularity with his core voters, and some of those voters might not show up to vote.
“It’s hard to translate excitement for one candidate to another,” Lara Trump said in an interview Thursday. “I don’t think it’s a referendum on the president directly if Republicans do not hold their seat or they lose a seat.”{mosads}
Asked whether Trump would take responsibility for Republican losses — as former President George W. Bush did following the 2006 elections and as former President Obama did after the 2010 elections, Lara Trump said no.
“Why would he bear responsibility?” she asked. “These candidates are individual people. It’s hard to say just because you voted for the president, go vote for this person.”
Democrats need to reclaim a net of just 23 seats to win control of the House, and most observers believe they are favored to do so.
“It obviously looks slightly better on the Democrat side,” Lara Trump said.
The situation is different in the Senate, where Democrats are running for reelection in a handful of deeply conservative states that Trump carried in 2016.
Republicans appear likely to add to their narrow Senate majority when the next Congress convenes.
Lara Trump has been traveling the country on behalf of GOP candidates ahead of the midterms next month.
She was in Kansas City on Thursday to offer support to Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley (R), who is locked in a tight Senate race against incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill (D).
The Trump campaign has paid for and organized dozens of rallies in conservative areas this year, meant to fire up a base Republicans fear will not be as motivated to show up in November as the Democratic base. Trump has held near-daily rallies in recent weeks leading up to the election.
“You see the president out everywhere, for a very good reason. Wherever the president goes, the poll numbers for the Republican House and Senate candidates are going through the roof. The Trump effect I think is very real, and I think people realize that. Everyone wants the president to come hold a rally in their state, in their area, and with very good reason,” Lara Trump said.