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Nov. 2, 2018 / 10:32 PM GMT
By Lauren Egan
HUNTINGTON, W.Va. — Heading into the final weekend before Election Day, President Donald Trump again suggested that the Republicans could lose control of the House — but that if they did, he would still be alright.
“It could happen, could happen,” Trump said to the crowd of rally-goers in a Huntington airport hangar, with Air Force One in the background. “We are doing very well, and we are doing really well in the Senate, but it could happen.”
Trump repeated a recent message: there are a lot of competitive House races around the country, he said, and “I can’t go everywhere” — Democrats could “squeak it by.”
But if they did, said Trump, he’d be okay. “And you know what you do? My whole life, you know what I say? ‘Don’t worry about it, I’ll just figure it out.’ Does that make sense? I’ll just figure it out,” he said.
Trump was in town Friday afternoon to campaign for West Virginia attorney general Patrick Morrisey, who is challenging Democratic incumbent Sen. Joe Manchin.
“I have to say, I like Joe. The problem is I am just not going to get his vote,” Trump said before introducing Morrisey.
Acknowledging one potential flaw with that argument — he did get Manchin’s vote just last month to approve his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh — Trump said that vote was not proof his loyalty.
“So I said Joe, I need the vote, like, today,” Trump said, suggesting that Manchin took too long to commit his support. But after Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, announced her support for the nomination, “we had all the votes, so we didn’t need Joe’s vote. And he pressed that button. … I said ‘Joe, Joe that doesn’t count. It doesn’t count.'”
Trump also chided former President Barack Obama, who has been hitting the campaign trail more frequently in the final days before the election.
“I heard President Obama speak today. I had to listen, I was in the plane and I had nothing else to do,” he said, before accusing his predecessor of lying about his health care policy during his presidency and mistreating the press. “Lie after lie, broken promise after broken promise, that’s what he did. Unlike President Obama, we live by a different motto. It’s called ‘promises made, promises kept.'”
West Virginia has been a bedrock for President Trump. Only one other state went for Trump by a greater margin in 2016, and it was one of only two states where every single county voted for the president. And contrary to national trends, Trump’s high approval rating in West Virginia has remained steady throughout his presidency.
Despite Trump’s continued popularity, Manchin has managed to hold an edge over Trump-allied Morrisey in polls of the closely watched Senate race.
“Manchin has pretty strong history in West Virginia,” said George Davis, a political science professor at Marshall University in Huntington. “He has family ties to the state and people think he was an effective governor.”
Morrisey is from New Jersey. Before moving to West Virginia, he ran for a New Jersey congressional seat in 2000, but lost in the Republican primary.
In West Virginia, both Republicans and Democrats agree that state ties matter.
“We are a small, rural state and I think we all feel like we know Joe personally,” West Virginia Democratic strategist Mike Plante told NBC News. “In places like West Virginia, we tend to hang on to our senators because we feel like we know them. Which is why some of the attacks against Manchin haven’t really stuck.”
Conrad Lucas, the former chair of the West Virginia Republican Party and a Huntington attorney, echoed the importance of homegrown roots.
“We’re very traditional and Manchin is a name that has been around for a long time. Oftentimes people here are so conservative that they vote for the same person out of tradition,” Lucas said, arguing that “for someone like Manchin who has been a household name in West Virginia for 30 years to be doing so poorly, that is ripe for an insurgency from someone like Morrisey.”
Michelle Williams, 42, a caregiver from Wayne County and a registered Republican, said at the rally that she hadn’t decided who she would support for Senate on Tuesday.
“I am not sure. I just don’t know. I will probably vote Republican because I support the president but I just haven’t decided. I’ll go with my gut on Election Day,” she said.
Jennifer Douglas, 48, who works at the Huntington airport where Trump held his rally, said she voted for Trump in 2016, and has voted for Manchin in the past — but wouldn’t do so this time.
“I am going to vote straight Republican. I am just going to try something different. I won’t say that I would never support Manchin again, but not this time,” she said.
Trump’s afternoon rally in Huntington was the first of two campaign stops Friday. He is expected to continue his midterm campaigning in Indianapolis Friday evening.