A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Ad spending in the midterms just hit a new record.
STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
According to AdImpact, which tracks this stuff, political actors have spent more than $11 billion. Ads are one way candidates get their messages to voters and another is rallies. President Trump has been on the road getting his message out.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR White House correspondent Danielle Kurtzleben is here to talk about the president's final push. So, Danielle, what is the president saying?
DANIELLE KURTZLEBEN, BYLINE: Well, he's going to all these places with tight races, including some typically red states like Texas, also Mississippi and Kansas. And he is giving something of a typical closing message saying, hey, vote for so and so. The GOP has lowered your taxes. The Democrats are extreme, but he's also not exactly sticking to that message. And ahead of the midterms is when that discipline, of course, matters.
Now, last night in Texas, he rallied voters in Lubbock for Republican Senate candidate Ken Paxton, while last night also by the way, Democratic candidate James Talarico - candidate for Senate - also rallied voters in Lubbock. And as Trump sometimes does, he went in all sorts of directions.
MARTÍNEZ: Yeah. So tell us exactly what he did touch on.
KURTZLEBEN: Sure. Well, there's this thing lately where he talks about Ohio Republican Senator Jon Husted's butt. The context is that Trump tells a story about how he recently found out Husted was a pretty good college football player, which led to Trump appraising his body. And so now it's become this extended comedic riff about Trump checking out Husted's backside and how Trump thinks the press is unfair in covering it.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: And I made the mistake of saying that I started off by studying his ass. I just...
KURTZLEBEN: It gets laugh from the crowd, but it's not clear what it does for voters in Texas, or for that matter, how it helps Husted defend his seat - pun intended. Yesterday, he also bragged about his health. He had a section about a news story from years ago when Massachusetts Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren took a genetic test about her heritage. Really, it just kind of went on.
In addition, he's been posting on social media about Daylight Savings Time. Also a long rant about comedian Bill Maher. Now, all of this isn't really what you might expect the median voter to care about, which might reasonably be the economy or gas prices.
MARTÍNEZ: Right. Yeah. So, I mean, how is he helping his party?
KURTZLEBEN: Well, I think there are a couple ways to look at this. One is that his lack of discipline is a problem. I mean, this is an unpopular president who's putting himself at the center of the midterms, and these rallies really are still very much Trump rallies where he tells his stories, talks about his grievances. He's complained, for example, about how he didn't get a Nobel Peace Prize. And this is, of course, just not the Republican closing message. Here's Republican strategist Alex Conant.
ALEX CONANT: Republicans very much want this election to be a choice between the Republican agenda and the Democrats' socialist agenda. You know, I'm not sure that that message is breaking through, you know, with all the other stuff we get from Trump. But the point of the travel is the travel.
MARTÍNEZ: So, Danielle, the idea being that what Trump says doesn't matter as much as just showing up.
KURTZLEBEN: Well, both matter. And when it comes to these rallies, to Conant, the case is simple. It's that Trump is still just really, really good at energizing the GOP base. Midterm turnout tends to be lowish, and the base still loves Trump. So the theory is that there are quite a few gettable MAGA votes that still could be turned out. Now, all of that said, it's still true that Trump is showing up in very red states to do this. So if - and it's if - he needs to get extra votes in a red state, that signals a problem for his party.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR's Danielle Kurtzleben. Thanks a lot.
KURTZLEBEN: Yeah. Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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