Editor’s Note: Scott Jennings, a CNN contributor, is a former special assistant to President George W. Bush and former campaign adviser to Sen. Mitch McConnell. He is a partner at RunSwitch Public Relations in Louisville, Kentucky. Follow him on Twitter @ScottJenningsKY. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own. View more opinion articles on CNN.
The line from Donald Trump’s reelection campaign kickoff rally that most stuck with me was: “Don’t ever forget this election is about you. It’s about your family, your future and the fate of your country.”
That sentiment – that voters should be thinking about themselves and their families when they vote – is the key to illustrating how the healthy economy, which has blossomed on Trump’s watch, has tangible effects on the lives of voters. While the media and Democrats will relentlessly focus on Trump and whatever they perceive as the outrage of the day, the President’s idea to get voters to think of themselves is a way around the Trump treadmill we’ve been on for four years. It’s a brilliant argument: All they care about is destroying me, and I just care about building your future.
After achieving 46% of the popular vote in the 2016 election, Trump’s job approval has stubbornly fluctuated just below that mark for most of his first term. At the same time, Trump’s approval rating when it comes to his handling of the economy has often been above 50%, causing political strategists to wonder what it will take to connect the two numbers.
Perhaps all Trump was lacking to bridge that gap was a campaign – a chance to lay out the stark differences between his policies and the Democrats’ alternatives. In the abstract, while weathering numerous other storms, including Robert Mueller’s probe and corresponding congressional investigations, Trump has often been distracted from narrowing in on a message about our undeniably strong economy.
But during this kickoff speech, he spent time focusing on the thing that all Americans want – a good life for themselves and a better life for their kids. And he started to draw a contrast between his performance and what he says the Democrats would do: raise taxes and redistribute wealth.
Sure, Trump hit the other notes – immigration, chiefly – but his reelection will hinge on whether he can keep people focused on what they love about his presidency instead of what makes them question it.
Trump also began to lay out how he intends to assail his eventual opponent – no matter the nominee – and perhaps cause problems inside traditional Democratic constituencies. He hit Democrats on their party’s lurch toward socialism, tried to shore up senior citizens’ support by promising to protect Medicare and Social Security, continued to promise to protect health care coverage for preexisting conditions, and touted the lowest unemployment rate for African-Americans in US history.
While Tuesday’s speech was billed as a kickoff rally, Trump’s campaign has been underway for months, taking advantage of the power of incumbency and setting a clear path to his party’s nomination. As the Democrats settle in for a long nomination fight, the President’s campaign and the Republican National Committee already had $82 million in the bank, according to Politico, and raised another $24.8 million online Tuesday, GOP Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel claimed. That’s more than Joe Biden says he has raised for his entire campaign effort. On the other hand, the Democratic National Committee, which will be waiting another year for a nominee, “spent more than it raised and added $3 million in new debt” in the first four months of 2019, according to a Bloomberg report.
And from a political organizing perspective, the Trump apparatus’ move to integrate its operations with the RNC is already paying dividends. According to a memo released this week by Trump’s campaign political director, Chris Carr, and described by David M. Drucker in the Washington Examiner, around 12,000 Trump supporters planned to attend more than 700 “MAGA meet-ups” to watch the kickoff speech. The campaign is also preparing 254 grassroots training seminars nationally, says the memo, while a Trump-aligned nonprofit group began a $20 million voter registration drive outside the event in Orlando.
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Incumbent American presidents usually win reelection, but not always. Trump faces great challenges, not the least of which are Democrats targeting soft Sun Belt states that traditionally vote Republican but seem potentially wobbly on Trump this time around.
But Trump has a record, a message and the advantages of incumbency to drive home the simple choice: No matter what you think of me personally, you are better off today than you were four years ago. And we just can’t afford to roll the dice on a socialist scheme that will fundamentally change our nation’s free enterprise system and, more importantly, threaten your family’s prosperity.
