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The elections on Tuesday hardly seem to be top of mind for President Trump.
He has spent the last week crisscrossing Asia, talking trade, nuclear weapons and rare earths, and is headed to Florida this weekend. He has not appeared in person in any of the major states hosting elections, like New Jersey or California, to pump up his party’s candidate or cause. In Virginia, where a weak Republican candidate for governor is lagging behind an impervious-looking Democrat, he’s offered only a tepid endorsement late in the campaign.
(This has not, of course, stopped Democrats from talking about him, either in California, where they are fighting to pass a ballot measure that could give them five more safe House seats, or anywhere else.)
None of this is unusual for a president in an off-year. But the contests — particularly the governor’s races in New Jersey and Virginia — are essentially the opening salvos of the midterm elections. And even if Trump has relatively little to say about them, the results will offer signals about his political strength and his party’s strength more broadly, as it considers ways to keep his supporters in the fold when he is barred from once again topping the ticket.
“Will those Trump voters become Republican voters?” asked Mike DuHaime, a Republican strategist who worked on Chris Christie’s successful off-year campaigns for New Jersey governor in 2009 and 2013. “Do they think any other race, other than presidential, is important enough to come out for?”
Here are three story lines that show how even elections that aren’t directly about Trump can’t help but be a little Trumpy.
Can a candidate win a blue state by sounding like Trump?
When Jack Ciattarelli, a former state lawmaker and a Republican, first ran for governor of New Jersey in 2017, he cut a wonky profile and occasionally criticized Trump, who he knew repulsed swing voters.
