--- title: Donald Trump's Birthright Citizenship Idea Is Strategy description: President Trump has been barnstorming the country, physically and virtually. canonical: https://time.com/5439160/trump-birthright-citizenship-midterms/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2018-10-30T17:28:14.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-23T21:52:54.932Z article:section: Politics og:title: President Trump's Birthright Citizenship Idea Is Part of His All-Out Midterm Strategy og:description: He's aiming for the Republican base. og:url: https://time.com/5439160/trump-birthright-citizenship-midterms/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6c36e9df8d29d180/69893dd3096a94d6d86a3cdc/trump-campaign-rally-midterm-elections.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 5331 og:image:height: 2999 og:image:alt: trump-campaign-rally-midterm-elections og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: President Trump's Birthright Citizenship Idea Is Part of His All-Out Midterm Strategy twitter:description: He's aiming for the Republican base. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6c36e9df8d29d180/69893dd3096a94d6d86a3cdc/trump-campaign-rally-midterm-elections.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # President Trump's Birthright Citizenship Idea Is Part of His All-Out Midterm Strategy > Sponsored content. 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Brief is TIME's Washington newsletter, written by senior correspondent Philip Elliott. It explains the politics, personalities and power dynamics behind the headlines, three times a week. It reaches 85,000 subscribers with a 37.0% open rate as of August 2026. #### Where can I get analysis of Washington politics by email? D.C. Brief is TIME's free Washington politics newsletter, available at time.com/newsletters. It is written by a TIME senior correspondent who covers the capital full time. #### Who writes TIME's D.C. Brief? Philip Elliott, a senior correspondent at TIME, writes D.C. Brief. #### Is D.C. Brief free? Yes. D.C. Brief is free at time.com/newsletters. by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Oct 30, 2018 5:28 PM UTC  President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Southern Illinois Airport, in Murphysboro, Ill., on Oct. 27, 2018. President Donald Trump speaks during a rally at Southern Illinois Airport, in Murphysboro, Ill., on Oct. 27, 2018. Jeff Roberson—AP/REX/Shutterstock by [Ryan Teague Beckwith](https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/) ## Ryan Teague Beckwith Oct 30, 2018 5:28 PM UTC In the days leading up to the 2016 election, Donald Trump toned it down. He [gave his staff control](http://fortune.com/2016/11/06/trump-staff-twitter-account/) of his Twitter account, avoided starting or inflaming any personal feuds and let his running mate tour the country, [inviting Republicans to come home](https://www.politico.com/story/2016/10/mike-pence-republicans-home-trump-230259). That is decidedly not his strategy in 2018. With the midterm elections just one week away, Trump has been barnstorming the country — [holding rallies](https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/29/politics/donald-trump-2018-midterms/index.html) in North Dakota, Montana and Indiana, with others planned in Florida, Missouri, West Virginia and Montana. He’s also been on a virtual barnstorm, using Twitter, cable TV and even a [rare White House press briefing](http://time.com/5438227/donald-trump-punching-back-pittsburgh/) to turn the conversation away from the meat-and-potatoes issues campaigns have been discussing into a 24/7 episode of the Trump Show. The former New York tabloid and reality TV impresario has used every trick he knows to change the subject. **Create an imminent threat:** Trump has used tweets and interviews to raise concerns about a [caravan of migrants from Central America](http://time.com/5430940/donald-trump-migrant-caravan-false-claims/) planning to legally seek asylum in the United States, making baseless claims that they include “criminals and unknown Middle Easterners,” and falsely suggesting that Democrats had funded it. **Propose unilateral solutions:** In response to the caravan, Trump has [threatened to cut off foreign aid](http://time.com/5430841/trump-foreign-aid-migrant-caravan/) to Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, and [sent 5,000 troops and a slew of military equipment to the U.S. border](https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/29/politics/pentagon-border-troops-migrants/index.html) — even though the migrants are still some 900 miles away and several weeks from arriving. **Float controversial ideas:** Trump has also taken to floating controversial ideas that would be hard to execute if he followed through, such as an executive order that would [remove the automatic right to citizenship](https://www.axios.com/trump-birthright-citizenship-executive-order-0cf4285a-16c6-48f2-a933-bd71fd72ea82.html) for babies born in the United States to non-citizens — an extreme position that would face serious constitutional challenges. **Make vague promises:** Trump has also [thrown out some bold but vague promises](http://time.com/5433053/president-trump-telltale-sign-health-care-taxes-wrong/) on issues where he’s weak, promising to protect people with pre-existing conditions and pass a middle-class tax cut, even though the policies he’s enacted and pursued during the past two years were on the other side. **Go on the attack:** Trump has also kept up attacks on his favorite targets — despite a recent spate of mail bombs aimed at some of them — hitting [Hillary Clinton](https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/hours-after-mail-bomb-arrest-trump-attacks-crooked-hillary-media-n925146), [liberal megadonor Tom Steyer](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-mocks-democratic-megadonor-tom-steyer-the-target-of-a-pipe-bomb-as-stumbling-lunatic/2018/10/28/d4bebd0a-dad5-11e8-85df-7a6b4d25cfbb%5Fstory.html), [Florida gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum](https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/30/gillum-responds-trump-attacks-947976) and [the news media](https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-45973436), which he recently called “the true Enemy of the People.” > [](https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1056879122348195841) The first midterm elections are often seen as a referendum on the performance of the president, but Trump has amped that dynamic up considerably through this approach. “I’m not on the ticket, but I am on the ticket, because this is also a referendum about me,” he told a rally in Mississippi earlier in the month. “I want you to vote. Pretend I’m on the ballot.” But while Trump is focused on exciting his base voters, there’s a risk that he’ll also inflame the Democratic base as well. And while his 2016 strategy kept Republicans who had doubts about him in the GOP column, it remains to be seen if his current approach will backfire with them. Recent polls have shown [health care](https://www.kff.org/health-reform/poll-finding/kff-election-tracking-poll-health-care-in-the-2018-midterms/), [immigration](https://news.gallup.com/poll/1675/most-important-problem.aspx) and [education](https://www.npr.org/2018/10/27/661039650/education-is-a-top-issue-in-midterms-and-professors-promise-to-encourage-voting) among the issues motivating voters to turn out, while in interviews at rallies and early voting stations show [voters are bringing up those issues](http://time.com/5439021/pittsburgh-synagogue-shooting-mail-bombs-voters/) — and not the hot topics on cable news of the moment. Trump may be winning the cable news battle for now, but it remains to be seen if that will help his party win the midterm elections war. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5439160/trump-birthright-citizenship-midterms/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5439160/trump-birthright-citizenship-midterms/"},"headline":"President Trump's Birthright Citizenship Idea Is Part of His All-Out Midterm Strategy","datePublished":"2018-10-30T17:28:14.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-23T21:52:54.932Z","description":"President Trump has been barnstorming the country, physically and virtually.","url":"https://time.com/5439160/trump-birthright-citizenship-midterms/","keywords":["Donald Trump","onetime","2018 Elections"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6c36e9df8d29d180/69893dd3096a94d6d86a3cdc/trump-campaign-rally-midterm-elections.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ryan Teague Beckwith","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ryan-teague-beckwith/"}],"articleSection":"Politics","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt6c36e9df8d29d180/69893dd3096a94d6d86a3cdc/trump-campaign-rally-midterm-elections.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"trump-campaign-rally-midterm-elections","caption":"Election 2018 Trump, Murphysboro, USA - 27 Oct 2018","creditText":"Jeff Roberson—AP/REX/Shutterstock","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/politics/","name":"Politics"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/donald-trump/","name":"Donald Trump"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5439160/trump-birthright-citizenship-midterms/","name":"President Trump's Birthright Citizenship Idea Is Part of His All-Out Midterm Strategy"}}]}] ```