Trump visits to safe red districts are a ‘considered strategy’ to fire up low-propensity voters: Byron York

Washington Examiner chief political correspondent Byron York said President Donald Trump’s campaign strategy in deep red districts is to energize “low-propensity voters.”“[Midterm elections] are normally sleepy, but the one thing we do know is that President Trump has a tremendous power to fire up people,” York said Tuesday on The Hugh Hewitt Show.On the downside, York said Trump’s presence increases voter turnout for both Republicans and Democrats. “If both of those, you know, powers are in effect this time, you could see some pretty serious turnout,” York said. Last Thursday, York traveled with Trump to Sioux City, Iowa, a congressional district the president won by 31 points in 2024. While critics mocked the president for visiting deep red areas instead of swing districts, York said the chairman of the Republican party said it was about appealing to “low-propensity voters.”“So when Trump says, ‘Please pretend like I’m on the ballot,’ and Democrats scoff at that, that’s actually a considered strategy,” York said. “Because if those voters actually do vote like Trump is on the ballot, then he’ll probably do better because when he won by 31 [points], that helped statewide Republican candidates win all across Iowa.”Trump is going back to Ohio Wednesday to help out Sen. Jon Husted (R-OH) in his race. Meanwhile, he’s also supporting the Republican Ohio gubernatorial candidate Vivek Ramaswamy through his latest controversy involving an attack ad featuring his opponent’s estranged mother.Democratic gubernatorial candidate Amy Acton’s mother, Donna Arthur, was featured in an ad calling her daughter a liar. The ad was hit with backlash, bringing up Acton’s history of a traumatic childhood involving her stepfather’s alleged sexual abuse when she was young. Instead of retracting the ad, Ramaswamy embraced it, investing $4 million into promotion.OBAMA RIPS RAMASWAMY AFTER ACTON AD: ‘NO OFFICE IS WORTH STOPPING THAT LOW’York said Trump went out in “full support” of the ad despite Republicans, including Husted, “running from it.”“My experience just watching Ramaswamy in the presidential race in [2024] is that he could, he really had the power to alienate people fairly quickly,” York said. “He could impress the heck out of somebody, and then, by about half an hour later, maybe, he was wearing a little thin on them.”