The message from President Donald Trump is grim.
“What I’m about to share with you is emotional. Prepare yourself,” he tells supporters.
Trump then declares: “This could be my final week as President.”
Of course, Trump has no plans to resign his office now or any time during the next two years of his second term, all while he openly muses about running — unconstitutionally, almost certainly — for a third term.
Trending
But recent emails and texts from Republican political committees — many paid for by a Trump-controlled fundraising committee known as the Trump National Committee JFC — are serving up hyperbolic Hail Marys in an effort to scare supporters into voting, donating and stemming a Republican electoral bloodbath that leads to Democrats controlling Congress.
Harsh language meant to incite fear and unease has become a hallmark of Republican emails in recent weeks as more polls show a Democratic majority is within reach.
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is warning against “one of the most dangerous Democrats running anywhere in America” by urging his supporters to stop Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic nominee for the Senate in Michigan, in an email sent during the early hours of Monday morning.
El-Sayed’s campaign got a $2.4 million boost after Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Michigan) endorsed his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, according to The Washington Post.
Cruz characterizes El-Sayed as a “radical socialist with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.” In the email accessed through politicalemails.org, Cruz called on “fellow conservatives” to stop El-Sayed from “gaining access to our top national security secrets.”
Peter Loge, the director of the Project on Ethics in Political Communication at George Washington University, said the “vote for the lesser of two evils” approach no longer applies, and Republicans have adopted a “vote against the evil of two lessers” mindset.
“Republicans aren’t saying, ‘Vote for us. We’re doing great.’ They’re saying, ‘Vote against them because you should be afraid of them,’” Loge said.
Cruz has been warning since January what a Democratic majority could mean for the Republican Party. In a phone call with donors, Cruz said he told Trump, “You’re going to lose the House, you’re going to lose the Senate, you’re going to spend the next two years being impeached every single week,” amid rising costs and tariffs, Axios reported.
Cruz’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
Another senator joining Cruz is Sen. Tim Scott (R- South Carolina).
“If we lose this race, Republicans are DONE,” Scott wrote in an Oct. 7 email from his political committee. Scott said that contributions to his “emergency fund” would aid Republican victories in Texas, Maine, Georgia, Minnesota and Ohio, helping the party retain the Senate majority.
Scott is the chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Scott’s communications director referred The Sun to public relations professional Nathan Brand from On Brand Strategies, who in turn referred The Sun to the NRSC, which acknowledged questions but did not otherwise answer them.
In recent weeks, emails paid for by Tim Scott for America have sent Maine and Minnesota warnings, and another email predicted that “the fate of Texas” hinged on a response to the email.“
Ken Paxton is in TROUBLE!” it said of the Republican U.S. Senate candidate running in Texas against Democrat James Talarico.
Democratic senators are largely appealing to voters’ anger in their last-minute messaging — sometimes with a dash of fear salted in.
Sen. Jon Ossoff, for one, sent an email Monday morning saying the midterms are the “last chance to stop MAGA,” and if Georgia is lost, “we can wave goodbye to any chance of taking back the Senate.”
Ossoff says the immediate answer to outrage about the state of the country is donating to his reelection campaign, where he is running against Republican Rep. Mike Collins.
In a speech at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool on Monday afternoon, Trump said the Democratic candidates this cycle are “the most extreme and dangerous slate of candidates in American history” with the most “radical agenda.”
“When you vote, remember a party that hates America cannot be allowed to rule over the people who built our country,” Trump continued.
Trump’s email messaging Monday mirrored that sentiment. One message read like a middle schooler’s social media post as the president asks his “real ones” to stand by him during a “heartbreaking” time — and questioned his supporters on whether they’ve “canceled on the MAGA movement?”
Trump then asks for money: “Any amount, even a small gift, tells them the patriots who started this with me in 2016 are still standing.”
In another email last week, Trump described a night reflecting in prayer at the White House Rose Garden.
“From our cities to the countryside, dangerous socialists and communists are preparing to destroy our Republican Majorities in the House and the Senate,” he wrote to supporters.
Loge said fear drives voters because they’re “more afraid of losing things than they are motivated by gaining things.”
While Democrats often appeal to voters’ sense of justice, Loge said Republicans’ eleventh-hour messaging is predictable because the Trump and MAGA brand involves being “angry” and “afraid.”
“Voters will say, ‘You know what? I’m angry, I’m afraid. I’m also tired, and I want a better tomorrow. So I’m going to go for a candidate who says they’re going to fix things and bring a better tomorrow,’” Loge said.
Author
