Preparing for a loss

In public and private, Trump and advisers are pointing to the president’s surge of campaigning on behalf of Republican Senate candidates — 19 rallies alone since Labor Day — as evidence that nobody else could have had a bigger impact in the states. The argument is classic Trump, who despite making the midterms a referendum on his own presidency, has a history of personalizing and then dwelling on his victories while distancing himself and diverting attention from his losses.

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[T]he White House is already dismissing any notion of a Democratic wave election on par with the Republican midterm pickups under former presidents Barack Obama or Bill Clinton.

Counselor to the president Kellyanne Conway this week on “Fox & Friends” pointed to the 43 Republican House retirements as a major reason the GOP was likely to lose seats. She also tried to contrast the expected GOP losses with drubbings previous Democratic presidents have received. “No nonpartisan, sane prognosticator right now is predicting the 63 House seat losses that President Obama suffered in his first midterms in 2010, or even the 54” that Clinton lost in his first midterms in 1994, which gave Republicans the House for the first time in 40 years, she said.

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Trump himself has even tempered expectations about the House in his remarks, often quickly pivoting to talk about the Senate.

“I think we’re doing well with the House,” he told reporters on Wednesday. “We’re going to have to see. I’ve campaigned for a lot of candidates that were down a little bit and now they're up,” he said.

Then, Trump added: “I think we're doing really extraordinarily well in the Senate.”

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The Senate approves Supreme Court justices, federal judges and confirms appointees, so retaining the majority will allow the GOP to pursue major parts of the Trump agenda even under a divided government.

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The strategy dovetails with anticipation in the White House that Trump will quickly shift into reelection mode after Election Day, assailing his opponents before they can get out of the starting blocks. He has already spent months going after Warren and Booker, as well as former Vice President Joe Biden. Current and former presidential aides said Trump has been rearing to shift to 2020 attack mode on a full-time basis.

“In the mind of the president, 2018 is simply an extension of 2020,” a former White House official said. “The reelection campaign began long ago, whether the press and the public realized it, or not.”

  Politico

President Donald Trump said Friday that Republicans could lose the House and that Democrats may "squeak" by in Tuesday's midterms — and if it happens, it will be because he wasn't able to campaign in every district.

"You know, I'm not saying they don't squeak it by, maybe, because they got a lot of races," Trump said during a rally in West Virginia, referring to Democrats gaining control of the House.

"I can't go everywhere," he said.

  Politico

If they win, it's because of him; if they lose, it's because he couldn't get there.

"A blue wave equals a crime wave. You don't hear too much about the blue wave anymore, do you," the president said. "Remember a couple of months ago, 'Oh, the blue wave, oh, the blue wave.' Now they don't talk."

Most projections indicate that Democrats are expected to do well on Tuesday's midterms and will likely back take control of the House from GOP hands. But expectations have dimmed that Democrats will deliver a blow-out that gives them control of the Senate as well.

Trump said he would find a way to work with a divided Congress.

"My whole life, you know what I say? 'Don't worry about it, I'll just figure it out.'" he said. "Does that make sense? I'll figure it out."

No. That doesn't make sense.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.