North Dakota Senator Heidi Heitkamp, a farm bill negotiator, is a White House target for defeat in the mid-term elections but President Trump will generally steer clear of the Midwest and races involving other members of the Senate Agriculture Committee. Officials familiar with the president’s plans said on Tuesday that North Dakota, where Heitkamp is in a tough race for re-election, is a likely Trump campaign stop on Tuesday but did not mention Indiana, where Joe Donnelly, another Democrat on the Agriculture Committee, is also in a toss-up race.
Trump will campaign the equivalent of four days a week ahead of the November 6 election, said the officials. In the first six weeks, he will appear in as many as 15 states, including North Dakota, South Dakota, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, Kentucky and Tennessee. Trump flew to West Virginia on Tuesday to campaign for the Republican challenger, Patrick Morrisey, of Sen. Joe Manchin, a second-term Democrat.
By an electoral quirk, eight of the 10 Democrats on the Senate Agriculture Committee are up for re-election this year, compared to two of 11 Republicans on the panel. Heitkamp and Donnelly are the most vulnerable among the committee members; indeed, they are in two of the six toss-up races nationwide for the Senate, according to political website Sabato’s Crystal Ball. Both won narrow victories in 2012 in states that Trump carried by large margins in 2016.
For Trump, success in the mid-term elections will mean keeping Republicans in control of the House and expanding their margin in the Senate, said the officials. At present, Republicans hold a 236-193 majority in the House and a 51-49 edge in the Senate. Sabato’s Crystal Ball lists 34 toss-up races in the House, 32 in districts held by Republicans. Five of the toss-up House races involve members of the Agriculture Committee.
In North Dakota, Heitkamp, a tenacious and well-known campaigner, is challenged by third-term Rep. Kevin Cramer, a former economic development official. House Republicans appointed Cramer as one of their farm bill negotiators although he is not a member of the Agriculture Committee. Heitkamp won election to the Senate by one percentage point in 2012.
While Trump intends to turn out the electoral coalition that won the 2016 presidential campaign, he also will try to attract other voters, said the officials. One-third of people who attend Trump rallies are not Republicans and up to one-fourth of attendees usually don’t vote in off-year elections.