Donald Trump’s name won’t appear on a single ballot today, and he knows what that usually means. Midterms are when a president’s voters relax. They won the big one two years ago. They figure the rest will take care of itself.
So on Monday night, a few hours before the polls opened, he went on Hannity and asked them for something a little unusual.
“I’m just asking everybody to pretend that I’m on the ballot.”
When you think about it, that’s a modest request. He didn’t say “save the country” or “vote the party line.” He said: imagine I’m there. Picture my name and fill in the oval the way you did before.
Then he gave the arithmetic as he sees it: “If our people vote, we win in a landslide.”
That “if” is the whole campaign. Fox called it his final message to voters, a last push for Republicans to turn out with the House and the Senate both in play.
What he says is riding on it isn’t abstract. He warned that parts of his agenda, including the tax provisions for tips, overtime, and Social Security, could be at risk depending on how today goes.
Think about who those belong to. The waitress counting what’s in her apron at the end of a double. The bartender closing out at 2 a.m. The nurse who picked up the extra shift because somebody called out. The retired machinist watching his Social Security check. None of them follow committee assignments. But Congress writes the tax code, and whoever holds Congress holds the pen.
Tuesday morning, he called Fox & Friends as people headed out to vote, and he kept it short. “We have to keep America great,” he said.
He told the hosts the country had gone from what he called a “laughingstock” to the “hottest country in the world.” Then: “They thought we were fools. And we’re hot now.”
It isn’t polished, and it was never meant to be. He has always talked to voters the way he’d talk to them across a kitchen table, and they’ve always understood him fine.
Nothing was new about any of it. No fresh pitch, no late policy, no closing speech. Just a man whose agenda depends on an election he isn’t in, asking the people who carried him to show up one more time. Without him, technically. With him, if they choose to see it that way.
The polls are open. If the line is still long when they close, stay in it. You still get to vote.
