WASHINGTON — As President Donald Trump descends on Mobile Friday, about a month before the midterms, the choice might look odd on the outside, with Alabama still being deep-red territory. But, as with many things involving Trump, the decision might be more about optics than anything else.
Trump is known to love an adoring crowd, and despite sagging approval nationwide, he’s almost sure to get a welcome reception inside the Mitchell Center at the University of South Alabama.
“President Trump is picking a state where he has got high favorability,” Benjamin Gross, director of the Center of Leadership and American Principles at Jacksonville State University, said. “And in an age where we broadcast images through television and the internet and social media, having images that show large support can be helpful.”
Polling from Civiqs’ rolling tracker shows that in Alabama, Trump maintains a net approval rating of +5, which stands in contrast to most other states where he has a net negative rating as the Iran war rages and Americans grapple with high prices.
Alabama Republican candidates are also choosing to attend his rally, which isn’t necessarily the case in battleground states this cycle, where GOP candidates could view the president as a liability rather than an asset.
“In Alabama, the perception is that he is a boost to their campaigns, and so that’s one of the reasons why he’s choosing Alabama, because here he’s wanted,” Joseph Aistrup, a political science professor at Auburn University, told Alabama Daily News.
If attendees shower Trump with praise during his Mobile rally, Aistrup said, it could “create a contagion effect” that could encourage other candidates to stand next to the president even in a climate that’s difficult for Republicans.
The Trump factor in the 2nd District
The GOP candidate in arguably Alabama’s most contested race, State Rep. Rhett Marques, and potentially the Republican with the most to lose by highlighting his ties with the president, is not just attending the rally. He’s also slated to speak, according to his campaign.
“It’s always great to have President Trump back in Alabama to rally voters to stand up for common sense and stop the crazy agenda of Shomari Figures and his radical socialist party that wants to ruin our state and country,” Marques said.
He faces U.S. Rep. Shomari Figures in the battle for the new 2nd Congressional District in November. The district was redrawn to help Republicans win back the seat. But Democrats aren’t letting the seat flip easily.
Figures told ADN he’s not thinking about Trump’s rally in his hometown “at all.”
“We know people here are tired of Trump,” the congressman said. “They’ve reached a sort of fever pitch of tolerance of this administration, of its corruption, of the policies that have been harming people in Alabama.”
Though Marques will be at the rally, Mobile is now in the 1st District under the new congressional map, which, according to the Cook Political Report, is solid Republican.
By keeping the rally in a safe red seat, Gross said Trump could minimize some of the Democratic spending that could come in the 2nd District race in an effort to counter the president’s presence if he were to visit that district instead.
While Aistrup said one of the biggest benefits of the Alabama stop for both parties’ candidates is a potential infusion of cash.
“It does drive that base to give more money to the candidates,” he told ADN. “The other half of that, though, is that the research is also pretty convincing that, especially with Trump, there is a counter mobilization, and that it leads Democrats and their supporters to also show up, so to speak, and also give money to Democratic candidates.”
Boosting voter turnout
For former Republican U.S. Rep. Jerry Carl, who is likely to punch his ticket back to Congress in the GOP stronghold of the 1st District, he’s hopeful a presidential visit will boost enthusiasm as the recent primary saw extremely low turnout.
“I see some excitement here that I haven’t seen in this race in the last 14 months, and that’s what it’s about right there,” Carl told ADN. “Trump can wake folks up.”
His opponent, Clyde Jones, agrees his visit will have the same effect — but for Democratic voters.
“This only adds to the motivation (of) the people who are already upset about our state legislature redistricting and redrawing the lines,” Jones told ADN. “So this just adds a little more fuel to the fire, I believe, to get people to the polls.”
But experts said that political science research and the lessons of the 2018 elections, the last midterms when Trump was in office, show that candidate stops don’t usually lead to a surge in voters come Election Day.
Top of the ticket
Republican candidates at the top of the ticket hope to gain momentum by highlighting their relationship with Trump despite his unpopularity nationwide.
Republican gubernatorial candidate U.S. Sen. Tommy Tuberville, who’s still favored to win the state’s top job despite former U.S. Sen. Doug Jones’s strong campaign, will introduce Trump Friday night.
“It’ll be a big day for Mobile, Baldwin, Mobile County, and the state of Alabama,” Tuberville told reporters.
Alabama officials will also celebrate the groundbreaking of the Mobile River Bridge Friday morning.
The GOP nominee to replace Tuberville in the Senate, U.S. Rep. Barry Moore, will also be on hand at the Mobile rally. During Trump’s first stop in the Port City in 2015, Moore endorsed the then first-time candidate. That moment has become a centerpiece of his campaign.
“I couldn’t be more excited to join President Trump as he leads us to victory in November,” Moore said. “His rally will be the jet fuel we need to win big in Alabama.”
Moore is set to face Democratic Birmingham attorney Everett Wess for the Senate seat next month.
While Tuberville remains buoyed by the Republican base, Jones is viewing Trump’s rally as a sign that the GOP is in trouble in the state this cycle.
“We’re scaring the hell out of them,” Jones said during an MS NOW interview. “They think Alabama is a firewall. Now they’ve got to protect a firewall. Well, it’s not a firewall anymore.”
He’s holding a town hall in Baldwin County on Friday, while Trump is next door for his rally.
But experts caution that Trump’s visit to Alabama doesn’t mean he’s facing significant headwinds in the state, even if he is elsewhere in the country.
“Given the data that we have and given the findings we have from political science, this is not about trying to suggest that Alabama is weak towards the Republican Party,” Gross told ADN. “This is about President Trump finding a location that is favorable to him for mass marketing, but also one not likely to draw Democratic support towards large races in the state.”