By Jeffrey A. Rendall
Note: This is part two of a two-part discussion on this year’s elections. Part one was on Friday.
Trump’s ability to find a better PR design could mean all the difference in 2026
Can Donald Trump ask for votes for other people/candidates?
By the looks of his rally in Iowa last week, he’s surely intending to try. I think even the most zealous of Donald Trump haters would concede that he’s a first-rate political force who excels at campaigning and persuading and framing issues the way he seeks to frame them. Trump is probably the least microphone-shy person in the world today. He loves talking and explaining and responding to feedback and relishes speaking to large audiences made even bigger through media exposure.
Trump loves talking about himself, what he’s done and what he intends to do. He frequently embellishes – to the point of frustration for supporters – but doesn’t lie. Trump is a straight shooter. None of these qualities surprise anyone. The career-real estate developer, tabloid celebrity, reality TV star-turned first-time politician turned two-term President of the United States appears as though he were born to campaign and ask people to vote. For him.
The question going into the all-too-crucial 2026 election is whether he can summons the magic to beseech skeptical “swing” voters to spend their one-and-only ballot for someone who may or may not support what Trump himself is doing. He can’t make promises for other candidates, neither has he shown a knack for having his endorsements pay off at the voting precinct.
Political pundits surmise the biggest Trump fans are Trump-only in orientation. They’ll show up and pull the lever for Trump himself, but not for other Republicans. One could argue this is just theory, though results from 2017-on prove the assertion. But 2026 is arguably the most crucial year of all for the success of Trump’s MAGA agenda. If Democrats win majorities in the House and Senate, it’s sayonara to Trump’s goal to Make America Great Again on his terms.
To that end, it appears there’s a sense of urgency in Trump’s “other people” campaigning this year. Whereas he’s conducted rallies on behalf of others many times before, now it looks like he’s got his heart in it. Will the increased a-vote-for-him/her-is-a-vote-for-me emphasis pay dividends?
In a column titled, “Trump shifts tactics and optics to calm immigration firestorm”, W. James Antle III wrote at the Washington Examiner:
“…Trump and Republicans are facing another round of difficult midterm elections. Trump would like to improve his administration’s image on the subject without demoralizing his base by breaking his deportation campaign promise. Some of his strongest supporters would prefer to see Trump invoke the Insurrection Act against Minnesota and the anti-ICE protesters.
“’At Cygnal, we recently surveyed voters on whether the Trump administration’s deportation efforts have gone too far, are about right, or haven’t gone far enough. The results: 50% said too far, 48% said about right or not far enough,’ Republican pollster Brent Buchanan wrote in his Monday memo. ‘That’s a statistical tie. A country split down the middle.’
“The recent New York Times-Siena poll found that 50% strongly or somewhat supported the deportations, while 47% strongly or somewhat opposed them. This was a survey that put Trump’s job approval rating at 40% and gave Democrats a 5-point lead in the generic congressional ballot. What Trump does next will matter greatly.”
This is the understatement of understatements. There is no simple answer here. I’ve addressed the Trump-image topic before, mainly maintaining that a change in “tone” is what’s needed most.
Winning this substantive contest doesn’t mean browbeating your Democrat opposition until they relent and admit you’re right. “Winning” equals continuing the mission to dutifully deport the most heinous of illegal alien offenders and tacitly leaving the majority of the rest to Congress to deal with. Trump promised to make America safe again and has done an admirable job deporting lots of aggressive, crime-committing aliens, but there is a point where he’s got to say, to himself, that good enough is good enough.
Squandering all of your political capital on the current course isn’t wise. And it’s bound to fail. Sad to say.
Swearing to deport every last alien is a worthy goal, but the practicalities make the campaign promise impossible. And, if the above-cited surveys are reflective of the voters’ mood, vowing to root the aliens out of their holes using every tactic available won’t carry public support. Shooting the perpetrators might have been individually justifiable in both cases recently, but it meant death in terms of what the “middle” thinks.
Focusing solely on the criminal aliens and then sticking with it until the job is done doesn’t make Trump a liar. It makes him smart, because in 2026, the only thing that matters is putting proverbial points on the vote-tally scoreboard.
What to do?
First off, Trump should resist the urge to make wholesale changes to his Department of Homeland Security team or his message on illegal immigration. Surveys demonstrate that most common-sense-grounded people support the underlying purpose for such enforcement even if they’re wary of the video imagery coming out of Minneapolis and other places.
Next, Trump has never been a half-way kind of guy and his willingness to call it like it is happens to be a major reason why he’s succeeded so spectacularly in building electoral coalitions that put Republicans across the finish line in elections he’s participated in. Trump’s message captures the imaginations of new and marginal voters because there’s an air of confidence and competency that “moderate” pols like John McCain and Mitt Romney sorely lacked.
You can be a halfway kind of politician and still get places in the Democrat party. Or at least it used to be that way. Big Bubba Bill Clinton made a career out of talking out of both sides of his blowhole, sounding as though he was with everyone and against the establishment class – and some in his own party – at the same time.
Bubba’s duplicity even has a name – a “Sister Souljah moment”. There’s risk to it – speaking against your own kind alienates some people, but it also tends to win over others who may consider you an all-or-none unbending despot. Donald Trump is many things, but a man who retreats on his word isn’t one of them.
But there are ways Trump can handle the situation without serious repercussions, and thankfully, it seems like he’s doing them. Calling up awful Governor Tim Walz and just-as-awful Mayor Jacob Frey and pouring a little sugar in the soulless pols’ ears last week was probably the best thing to do.
The fact Walz and Frey summarily rejected his overtures puts the onus on them. Just don’t take the bait and pursue the vendetta. Do what wins votes. Focus on the end goal. Criminal aliens first. Make it a mantra.
Also true was Trump signaling that changes would be made to the way ICE does things in Minneapolis. Not because ICE’s undertaking was wrong, but recognizing you can’t have two human beings shot and killed on national TV (through phone video) and hope to stay on course with the original mission. The leftist protestor kooks aren’t the main obstacle here, but public opinion certainly is.
As I’ve suggested in the past, Trump’s unfiltered use of social media has basically been a net negative for him, because he needs an extra pair (or pairs) of eyes to weed out the damaging stuff in a PR sense. Trump’s “I don’t care what they think” attitude propels him, but occasionally he should bow to public whims when it comes to winning elections.
Winning in 2026 isn’t everything, it’s the only thing.
Someone should approach the president and put it to him this way – rein it in until after November’s elections and you’ll enjoy two years of virtually free-to-do time through January 2029. And then you’ll step into history on par with American greats of the past who’d mastered the public relations part of the position in addition to setting policy that guaranteed immortality. Think Ronald Reagan. Not George W. Bush or Barack Obama.
Or don’t do it and see what happens. Trump’s Iowa event last week, the parts I saw of it, looked much like his usual campaign events. The president was calm and relaxed and un-worried in appearance. Nothing phases Donald Trump, and he’s always up to the moment when speaking to a large group about… his accomplishments.
The mystery is whether Trump will rouse the MAGA masses while asking them to show up and vote for someone other than himself. It won’t be an easy task, but altering his pitch methods and public relations strategies in the coming months will make all the difference. “Winning” depends on play-calling as well as the personnel on the field.
Will President Trump realize it before it’s too late?
Trump in Iowa (click the picture for video):
Jeff Rendall is editor and publisher of GolfintheUSA.com and has written about golf and politics for over a quarter of a century. A non-practicing attorney from California, he moved to the east coast three decades ago to pursue and combine his interests in all things American history and culture. Jeff has worked as an intern on Capitol Hill and in various capacities in grassroots organizing and conservative organizations and publications, including a nearly two-decade stint at ConservativeHQ.com. Column republishing or other inquiries: Rendall@msn.com .