Exclusive: James Blair Says Trump Will Be ‘Extremely Active’ in Final 6 Weeks Before Midterms

President Donald Trump’s midterm political chief James Blair laid out the Republican strategy for November in an exclusive interview on Breitbart News Saturday, detailing plans to tie Democrats to their national party, turn out less-frequent GOP voters, and deploy Trump and campaign resources in key House and Senate races.

Blair told Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle that Republicans’ strategy is “twofold,” combining the national political environment with the circumstances of individual races. “Elections are not all national and they’re not all local,” Blair said. “It’s a little bit of both.”

At the national level, Blair said Republicans should focus on Democratic positions they believe are unpopular with voters in the political center, while individual candidates need to make their races direct choices between themselves and their opponents. “Our candidates have to create a binary choice between them and their opposition,” Blair said, arguing that Republicans should not allow Democratic candidates to distance themselves from the national party. “They’re not a different kind of Democrat. They’re the same radical left-wing Democrat everywhere, and that’s really what we have to expose over the next 45 days.”

Turning to the Senate, Blair said Democrats face a difficult path to gain the seats necessary to take control of the chamber. Democrats need a net gain of four seats in November, with competitive contests including Alaska, Georgia, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas. “It’s a very tall order for the Democrats to be able to sort of run the table in the way they need to to get to 51 senators,” Blair said.

Blair also cautioned against treating current public polling as necessarily predictive of the final results, pointing to previous polling misses and saying he has access to internal polling. “I’m not saying, you know, that precisely will happen,” Blair said of historical polling errors. “But I’m sure that all these public pollsters — because I see internals, of course, which are better — all these public pollsters haven’t magically fixed all their polling errors over the last 10 years.”

“So I think once again, Republicans are being undercounted,” Blair added. “You have to keep that in mind in the polls.”

Blair devoted particular attention to North Carolina, where Republican Michael Whatley is running against former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper. Trump campaigned with Whatley in Gastonia earlier this week as Republicans seek to hold the open Senate seat. “Our base position is that North Carolina is fundamentally a close state, as it always has been,” Blair said, while acknowledging Cooper’s history of statewide victories. “He’s a capable candidate who’s used to winning there.”

Blair pointed to Republican gains in voter registration as one reason he believes Whatley remains competitive. “The number one indicator of how somebody is going to vote from a party perspective is how they are registering,” Blair said, adding that “the voter pool for Republicans has been expanding at a substantially faster clip than the voter pool for Democrats.”

A major part of the Republican closing strategy will involve Trump himself as voting begins across the country, Blair said. “Voting is really just starting right now in the earliest states, and so his schedule with it is ramping up.”

Blair said Trump’s political operation plans to time appearances and other outreach around the beginning of early and mail voting, encouraging Republican voters to cast ballots before Election Day rather than waiting until November 3. “Vote now by mail if you want to. Vote in person early if that’s your preference. Don’t wait till Election Day,” Blair said. “But if you do wait, don’t miss Election Day.”

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Breitbart · James Blair – September 19, 2026

“You’ll see him extremely active in sort of the closing six weeks here of the election,” Blair added, saying the strategy follows the model Republicans pursued in 2024.

Blair said Trump is particularly important for reaching “low- and mid-propensity” Republican voters who supported him but have historically been less likely to participate in midterm elections. “We have a sophisticated operation that is focused on actually turning these people out,” Blair said, arguing that Republicans have not always had comparable operations in previous midterms. “We don’t usually have that operation. We don’t usually have that strategy.”

If Republicans succeed in bringing those voters to the polls, Blair said, the party could outperform current likely-voter surveys. “Our floor is higher than any public poll is picking up, and therefore our ceiling is higher,” Blair said. “The president is the number one messenger to those people and the number one communicator to those people.”

Blair said Republicans are also pursuing Democratic-held Senate seats rather than focusing exclusively on defense, highlighting Georgia, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and Michigan. “We like them all, and we’re playing them,” Blair said.

In Georgia, Blair said Republican Mike Collins’s race against Democrat Sen. Jon Ossoff has been tightening and sought to draw a contrast between the candidates over taxes. “Don’t count out Mike Collins in Georgia,” Blair said. “That race is closing.”

Blair described New Hampshire as “a total slugfest” between Republican John E. Sununu and Democrat Chris Pappas, while calling Minnesota “the sleeper that maybe no one was paying attention to.”

In Michigan, where Republican Mike Rogers faces Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, Blair said Republicans plan to focus on El-Sayed’s previous positions on policing and taxes. “He’s very out of step, and I think Mike Rogers stands a very good chance of winning,” Blair said.

About the House, Blair rejected the idea that Democrats are assured of taking control and said Republicans remain competitive across the battleground districts. “Republicans are absolutely in the hunt to keep the House,” Blair said. “Anybody who’s saying otherwise doesn’t understand the districts and the numbers.”

Blair acknowledged Republicans need a strong performance among competitive seats because they already hold many of them, but said the party is also targeting Democratic incumbents, including Reps. Tom Suozzi of New York, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, and Jared Moskowitz of Florida. “We are not only defending Republicans, but we are coming after Democrats and coming hard,” Blair said. “That’s because we think we can win those seats.”

Blair argued that the group of competitive House districts is somewhat more Republican than the national electorate overall. “The key thing to know is that the battleground House districts are to the right of the national electorate,” Blair said. “They are a bit to the right of the national environment.”

Blair also pointed to Republican spending, saying GOP candidates are not facing the type of spending disadvantage he said the party has experienced in previous cycles. “We’re not getting outspent, which has never happened before,” Blair said, adding that he expects Republicans to “outspend them down the stretch.”

Blair said Republicans have begun seeing movement as campaigns intensify their advertising and field operations. “We are making progress and moving things in the right direction, sort of across the board for Republican candidates,” Blair said.

Still, Blair repeatedly stopped short of portraying control of the House as assured. “I always say I’m cautiously optimistic on the House. I will never say bullish,” Blair said. “It’s just close. We’re cautiously optimistic, and it’s just a race-by-race fight.”

Blair said Trump remains committed to directing political resources toward Republican candidates through Election Day. “The president is committed to doing everything he can to help Republicans win the midterms,” Blair said. “Down the stretch here, I think, you know, we’re going to continue to have the upper hand in terms of the resource war.”

Blair ended with an appeal for Republican donors to continue contributing during the final weeks of the campaign. “Now is not the time to pull back. Now is the time to double down — in for a penny, in for a pound,” Blair said. “Please keep sending me ammo. We need it.”

Breitbart News Saturday airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Eastern.