A longtime top Republican campaign guru has identified a key issue Republican candidates have to contend with as voters head to cast their ballots ahead of next week’s midterm elections.
Alex Castellanos, who has worked on six Republican presidential campaigns, believes that the biggest concern in the midterms this year is not the ‘blue wave’ but a phenomenon he has coined as the ‘Red Scream.’
Per Axios, Castellanos believes that ‘Republicans and independents are going to be screaming for attention, and many of them, including those who voted for Trump, may show their frustration by not showing up.’
Trump is currently criss-crossing the country trying to enthuse voters to turn out for less palatable GOP candidates who, in many cases, were hand-picked by Trump in primary contests.
His party seeks to defy history in November’s elections despite his low approval rating that has rebounded slightly to 40 percent in polls released this week.
Still, Trump’s approval rating is underwater in almost every single battleground state per a Civiqs’ rolling tracker of registered voters.
The Cook Political Report currently lists the following states in their ‘toss-up’ column for US Senate races: Alaska, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, and Texas.
Democrats need to flip four Republican-held seats to win Senate control, with their best prospects being North Carolina, Texas, Ohio and Alaska.
Alex Castellano thinks disillusioned Republicans could cost GOP candidates at the ballot box
President Trump campaigns in Lubbock, Texas on Tuesday evening
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Of the swing states, Trump’s disapproval rate is the highest in Maine, at 61 percent, and the lowest in Kansas, at 45 percent.
Ohio and Texas were tied at 56 percent disapproval, just below Iowa at 55 percent. Fifty-nine percent of Michiganders were found to have disapproved of Trump, along with 53 percent of Alaskans.
Among Republicans, younger voters between the ages of 18 and 34 handed Trump his lowest approval rating at 63 percent. 21 percent of respondents in that age group said they disapproved of Trump, while 16 percent claimed they neither approve nor disapprove.
In the aforementioned battleground states, double-digit percentages of Republicans disapprove of Trump’s job performance.
That factor could be especially damaging in Ohio, where 14 percent of Republicans disapprove of the job Trump is doing, but he is trying to keep the Buckeye State’s Senate seat red by tying incumbent John Husted closely to him.
Trump has won the state three times while running for president.
A similar tale is playing out in Texas, where 13 percent of Republicans disapprove of Trump, and his handpicked US Senate candidate, Ken Paxton.
Trump also sits at 13 percent disapproval among Republicans in Michigan, where former GOP congressman Mike Rogers is running for the US Senate against Democrat Abdul – el Sayed.
The numbers are slightly better in Alaska and Maine, which sit at 12 percent each, and in Kansas and Iowa, where only 10 percent of Republicans disapprove of Trump.
