‘A five-alarm fire’ confronts President Trump in red-state October blitz

Grand Island, Nebraska (CNN) — The midterm elections were just two days away the last time a sitting president visited Grand Island, the fourth-largest city in the middle of one of the nation’s most reliably Republican states.

It was November 5, 2006, and George W. Bush was barnstorming red cities in red states in hopes of staving off what would become the inevitable: a wave wiping away Republican control of the House and Senate for the final two years of his term.

Now, President Donald Trump is facing the midterm music.

As Trump heads here on Monday, to a state he won by 20 points two years ago, he is looking for a safe harbor – and to fire up friendly faces – in the latest stop on his red-state October blitz.

The White House itinerary tells the story of how the final chapter of the fall campaign is playing out almost entirely in Trump country. In a weeklong stretch, the president’s travels from Texas to Oklahoma to Alabama to Ohio to Nebraska and back to Texas — all states he carried by double digits — underscore the degree to which Republicans are on defense as he urgently rallies supporters to come to his party’s aid.

“Just get out and vote,” Trump told a weekend crowd in Ohio. “If you do that, we’re going to win and we’re going to win big. And we’re going to shove it up their ass.”

With or without vulgarities, Trump has been telegraphing his worry about the midterm campaign for the last year. It’s a rare bout of self-reflection that he faces the same challenges all presidents do, with the fight for control of Congress nearly always delivering a comeuppance to the party in power.

“Whether you have a great president or not, Republican or Democrat, they don’t do well in the midterms,” Trump lamented Friday night at a stop in Mobile, Alabama. “I don’t know why. Nobody’s explained it.”

It’s still an open question whether Trump’s sudden campaign spree, along with significant GOP financial advantages in nearly every battleground state, will help Republicans avoid a similar fate now. Democratic anxieties are also rising about being outspent in TV ads across the map.

In 2018, during Trump’s first midterm election, Republicans lost the House but narrowly expanded their grip on the Senate. But with a far bleaker economic picture and a lingering war in Iran, even many Republicans are pessimistic about November.

“This is a five-alarm fire,” a GOP member of Congress from a state Trump visited recently told CNN, asking to not be identified to avoid alienating the White House. “We always welcome the president, but I don’t know if he’s aware of the feelings out here.”

Rallying support for Ricketts

When Trump arrives at the Nebraska State Fairgrounds in Grand Island, he will be stepping into the state’s 3rd Congressional District, which he won with 76% of the vote in 2024. It’s the most Republican part of Nebraska, covering 80 of the state’s 93 counties, where cattle ranching and farming is the lifeblood of the economy.

The president is not visiting the two other congressional districts in Nebraska, which are highly competitive, particularly the 2nd District to fill the seat of retiring Rep. Don Bacon. The 2nd – which includes Omaha and is sometimes known as the “blue dot” – is one of only three districts in the country Trump lost in 2024 that is represented by a Republican.

Trump’s rally is intended to offer a boost to Republican Sen. Pete Ricketts, who is facing a challenge from Dan Osborn, a former union leader and independent candidate. It is among the competitive races stirring anxiety among Republicans in their effort to hold their Senate majority, where there is no margin for error as the battleground map expands.

“There’s no doubt that high fuel prices put a strain on the budgets for every Nebraska family,” Ricketts told CNN, adding that he welcomes the president’s visit. “That’s one of the things I hear when I travel the state.”

Osborn is running again two years after losing by fewer than 7 percentage points to GOP Sen. Deb Fischer. This time, he faces no Democratic opposition, with the party intentionally standing down in hopes of defeating Ricketts.

“The significant difference now between when I was campaigning in 2024 is the war in Iran and costs that are skyrocketing,” Osborn told CNN. “With every single town hall, that’s usually the first thing that gets brought up is the cost of living. It’s tough.”

The president’s August decision to allow up to 300,000 metric tons of ground beef to be imported into the United States with lower tariffs was also met with fierce opposition from Nebraska cattle growers.

The policy, which Trump said was designed to bring down the cost of beef in the grocery store, has also sparked controversy in Iowa, Kansas and Texas, the rest of the top four beef-producing states. All four have competitive Senate races in states Trump won three times.

Whether Trump addresses the matter will be closely watched in the region.

“This harvest season, with diesel nearly doubled, export markets drying up, rural hospitals struggling, and senseless tariffs still hitting our pockets, Trump would be better served doing his actual job instead of breaking every promise he made to Nebraskans,” said Jane Kleeb, chairwoman of the Nebraska Democratic Party.

‘A disaster on our hands’

In his weekend campaign stops, Trump continued to exhibit a disconnect between how he describes the economy and how many Americans experience it. He made no mention of rising costs but said: “With the hottest country anywhere in the world, it’s the golden age of America.”

He is striving to make the November election a contrast with Democrats rather than a referendum on him and the administration’s policies.

It follows a familiar pattern with his 2018 campaign travel in the midterm election of his first term: visiting red states filled with admirers, hoping to minimize political harm by firing up his detractors.

“If the Democrats win, you will end up in a 1929-style Great Depression,” Trump told a crowd in Ohio on Saturday night. “We will have a disaster on our hands.”

Excitement was building in Grand Island, a city of 53,000, for his arrival. Trump won Hall County, which includes the city, by 37 points in 2024. Local news accounts recalled the last time Air Force One landed at Central Nebraska Regional Airport in 2006. In that speech, Bush warned Republicans against lapsing into a gloom-and-doom mindset.

“I’m sure you’ve heard the same predictions I’ve heard,” Bush said. “The prognosticators have already decided the outcome of this election before the good people of Nebraska have voted.”

A decade before Trump rallies began leaving their mark on modern-day politics, Bush spent the spent the final four days of that campaign also barnstorming through Montana, Nevada, Missouri, Iowa, Colorado, Kansas, Florida and Arkansas.

Republicans held all three House seats in Nebraska then. But they went on to lose their congressional majorities – 31 seats in the House and six in the Senate – in a midterm election season Bush famously described afterward as “a thumping.”

The-CNN-Wire
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