Trump strategist defends red state rally tour strategy for midterms

A veteran campaign strategist who worked for Donald Trump’s 2024 reelection bid told Fox News Digital that pundits are misreading the strategy behind the president’s 32-state pre-midterms rally tour, which includes stops in deep red states.

Thursday, the president spoke in Denton, Texas, a suburb of Dallas before traveling to Oklahoma, a longtime bastion of conservatism that hasn’t been carried by a Democrat in a presidential election since Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964. Trump on Friday will rally in Mobile, Alabama, another traditionally Republican-dominated state.

While political analysts speculate Trump’s blitz signals doom for the GOP in November, Luke Ball, who knows intimately the inner-workings of how the 47th president operates on the campaign trail, has a different view.

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“So, for people who are maybe commenting and doing it from a perspective of ‘the president’s in trouble,’ I think that it’s kind of a lazy analysis for you to just take it at surface value that he’s in red states,” Ball said.

He added that Texas and Oklahoma go “hand in hand,” and that the appearing in both places can boost Republican midterm turnout in November across swing district or more competitive districts found in some deep red states.

Though he admits the strategy is a “risk” for Trump, he says the month-long tour isn’t a fly-by-night operation.

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“They keep saying — and it’s a risk politically for the president — but they keep saying that he is on the ballot and on the top of the ballot, but the reason they’re doing it is because the RNC the MAGA Incs, and the James Blair’s of the world have the data that show who’s going to turn out for the president and nobody else,” said Ball.

MAGA Inc. is a Super PAC that poured more than $375 million into electing Trump in 2024, and is now backing Republican congressional candidates nationwide. James Blair was Trump’s 2024 campaign political director, and is now the White House Deputy Chief of Staff.

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“The next stop is in Mobile, Alabama, another media market that I worked in, which is going to encompass Pensacola, Florida — which always brings out the vote for the rest of the state,” Ball said. “So if you want to solidify your standing in Florida and show that you still are the kingmaker in that state that used to be purple a few years ago, and now Democrats don’t even bother spending in it, you’ve got to make sure that you lock that down.”

“So, great optics in Alabama, great optics in Oklahoma, but in addition to that, you’re getting a red area of Texas motivated to turn out and a very, very red area of Florida to turn out for those elections.”

Nationwide media coverage of the rallies is in itself part of the strategy, too.

“Other traditional candidates would strategically target and fine-tune the principal’s time in various states, but people were saying Trump wasn’t going to go out on the campaign trail at all, and now it’s the total opposite,” Ball explained. “It’s, ‘why is he doing so much? Why is he hitting all of these deep red states?’ It’s also from a perspective too, when you have these major rallies in Mobile, Alabama, or Oklahoma or deep red states across the nation, that still gets major national coverage.”

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In Denton, Trump toured a Peterbilt truck manufacturing plant, where he met with employees of the company and made brief remarks. Stops like that are part of a broader campaign strategy, according to Ball.

“When we were on the campaign trail, I remember [former co-campaign manager] Susie Wiles saying that at every stop he goes to, she wants him at an off the record event, whether that’s going into the Bluebird Diner in Iowa or eating a hoagie in Buc-ee’s or whatever it might be, and I almost see a little bit of parallel here with the macro strategy behind the tour,” he said.

Wiles is now Trump’s closely trusted White House Chief of Staff.

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“Instead of popping into a mom and pop show or store, he’s touring manufacturing or he’s going to a specific industry in one state and then holding a rally that captures the media market in another. So you’re not just showing up and leaving,” Ball continued. “You always think about what’s the additional thing you can do to draw out voters in that state.”