Jonathan Bernstein, Columnist

Are Trump's Rallies Harming Republicans?

In three recent elections, the party’s candidates have done poorly after getting the president’s support. Why?

November 18, 2019 at 11:30 AM UTC

Jonathan Bernstein is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics. A former professor of political science at the University of Texas at San Antonio, he wrote A Plain Blog About Politics.

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Early in his presidency, one of the few things Donald Trump did well was to selectively use rallies to help other Republicans running for office. Trump seemed careful to only go all-out for candidates who were likely to win, thus doing his best to build a reputation as an effective advocate for his party.