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Welcome to The Logoff: Donald Trump is closing out the midterms by talking about anything but.
What’s happening? If polls bear out, Republicans are a day away from a catastrophically bad midterms result, potentially losing control of both chambers of Congress.
Trump, however, has other things on his mind. On Monday, he made his final midterms pitch in a nearly hour-long press conference with Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, where he focused heavily on the state of the newly reopened Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool and his other DC construction projects (both planned and underway).
“This is a massive piece of pool,” he said. “And it was treated with a lot of love and then it was treated with a lot of hate, and we’re going to stop the hate.”
What else has Trump been saying? Monday marked the culmination of the president’s strange campaign season, which has been heavy on disjointed rambling and musings about the posterior aspect of incumbent Republican Sen. Jon Husted (among others).
Trump has also spent the past few months urging Americans to vote in the midterms as if he were on the ballot — but polling suggests he may be more of a drag than a boon to Republican candidates locked in close races.
What’s the big picture? We won’t know for sure how the midterms will turn out until polls close Tuesday night (and maybe not for a while after that, depending on how some key races turn out).
Trump, though, briefly acknowledged on Monday that things are looking bleak for his party: “For some reason, the sitting president doesn’t win the midterms,” he said, “but we gave this a very strong shot.”
And with that, it’s time to log off…
This is a few days late in coming, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t share my colleague Ian Millhiser’s tribute to the late Patrick Stewart and his iconic role on Star Trek as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. You can read the full story here with a gift link.
As always, thanks for reading, have a great evening, and we’ll see you tomorrow for the big day!
